3RARY 

'ERSITY  OF 

LiFOSNIA 

RVINE 


Life  and  Matter 


Life  and  Matter 

A  Criticism  of  Professor   Haeckel's 
"Riddle  of  the  Universe" 


'By 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge 


G.  P.   Putnam's   Sons 
New  York  and   London 

"Knickerbocker  press 
1909 


COPYRIGHT,  1905 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


Ube  fmicberbochcr  press,  "Hew  JJotfc 


"  Materialistic  monism  is  nowadays  the  working  hy- 
pothesis of  every  scientific  explorer  in  every  department, 
whatever  other  beliefs  or  denials  he  may,  more  or  less 
explicitly  and  more  or  less  consistently,  superadd.  Ma- 
terialistic monism  only  becomes  false  when  put  forward 
as  a  complete  philosophy  of  the  universe,  because  it 
leaves  out  of  sight  the  conditions  of  human  knowledge, 
which  the  special  sciences  may  conveniently  disregard, 
but  which  a  candid  philosophy  cannot  ignore." 

"The  legitimate  materialism  of  the  sciences  simply 
means  temporary  and  convenient  abstraction  from  the 
cognitive  conditions  under  which  there  are  '  facts  '  or 
'objects'  for  us  at  all;  it  is  'dogmatic  materialism' 
which  is  metaphysics  of  the  bad  sort." 

D.  G.  RITCHIE. 

"  Our  metaphysics  is  really  like  many  other  sciences — 
only  on  the  threshold  of  genuine  knowledge:  God  knows 
if  it  will  ever  get  further.  It  is  not  hard  to  see  its 
weakness  in  much  that  it  undertakes.  Prejudice  is 
often  found  to  be  the  mainstay  of  its  proofs.  For  this 
nothing  is  to  blame  but  the  ruling  passion  of  those  who 
would  fain  extend  human  knowledge.  They  are  anxious 
to  have  a  grand  philosophy:  but  the  desirable  thing  is, 
that  it  should  also  be  a  sound  one." 

KANT. 


PREFACE 

THIS  small  volume  is  in  form  controversial,  but 
in  substance  it  has  a  more  ambitious  aim :  it 
is  intended  to  formulate,  or  doubtless  rather  to  re- 
formulate, a  certain  doctrine  concerning  the  nature 
of  man  and  the  interaction  between  mind  and  mat- 
ter. Incidentally  it  attempts  to  confute  two  errors 
which  are  rather  prevalent,  viz. : 

1.  The  notion  that    because  material  energy   is 

constant  in  quantity,  therefore  its  transfor- 
mations and  transferences — which  admittedly 
constitute  terrestrial  activity — are  insuscept- 
ible to  guidance  or  directing  control. 

2.  The  idea  that  the  specific  guiding  power  which 

we  call  "life  "  is  one  of  the  forms  of  material 
energy ;   so  that,  directly  it   relinquishes  its 
connection     with    matter    other    equivalent 
forms  of  energy  must  arise  to  replace  it. 
The  book  is  specially  intended  to  act  as  an  anti- 
dote against  the  speculative  and  destructive  portions 
of  Professor  Haeckel's  interesting  and  widely  read 


viii  Preface 

work,  but  in  other  respects  it  may  be  regarded  less 
as  a  hostile  attack  than  as  a  supplement — an  exten- 
sion of  the  more  scientific  portions  of  that  work  into 
higher  and  more  fruitful  regions  of  inquiry. 


OLIVER   LODGE. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  BIRMINGHAM, 
October,  1905. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I.  MONISM i 

II.  THE  LAW  OF  SUBSTANCE    .         .         .         .12 

III.  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LIFE  35 

IV.  MEMORANDA  FOR  WOULD-BE  MATERIALISTS  52 
V.  RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY         ...  62 

VI.  MIND  AND  MATTER 87 

VII.  PROFESSOR       HAECKEL'S       CONJECTURAL 

PHILOSOPHY     ......  109 

VIII.   HYPOTHESIS  AND  ANALOGIES  CONCERNING 

LIFE        .         .         .         .         .         .         .119 

IX.  WILL  AND  GUIDANCE  .....  133 

X.  FURTHER  SPECULATION  AS  TO  THE  ORIGIN 

AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE      ....  157 


LIFE  AND  MATTER 


CHAPTER  I 

MONISM 

IN  his  recent  Presidential  Address  before  the 
British  Association,  at  Cambridge,  Mr.  Balfour 
rather  emphasised  the  existence  and  even  the  desira- 
bility of  a  barrier  between  Science  and  Philosophy, 
which  recent  advances  have  tended  to  minimise, 
though  never  to  obliterate.  He  appeared  to  hint 
that  it  is  best  for  scientific  men  not  to  attempt  to 
philosophise,  but  to  restrict  themselves  to  their 
own  domain;  though,  on  the  other  hand,  he  did 
not  appear  to  wish  similarly  to  limit  philosophers, 
by  recommending  that  they  should  keep  themselves 
unacquainted  with  scientific  facts,  and  ignorant  of 
the  theories  which  weld  those  facts  together.  In- 
deed, in  his  own  person,  he  is  an  example  of  the 
opposite  procedure,  (or  he  himself  frequently  takes 


2  Life  and  Matter 

pleasure  in  overlooking  the  boundary  and  making 
a  wide  survey  of  the  position  on  its  physical  side — 
a  thing  which  it  is  surely  very  desirable  for  a 
philosopher  to  do. 

But  if  that  process  be  regarded  as  satisfactory,  it 
is  surely  equally  permissible  for  a  man  of  science 
occasionally  to  look  over  into  the  philosophic 
region,  and  to  survey  the  territory  on  that  side  also, 
so  far  as  his  means  permit.  And  if  philosophers 
object  to  this  procedure,  it  must  be  because  they 
have  found  by  experience  that  men  of  science  who 
have  once  transcended  or  transgressed  the  boundary 
are  apt  to  lose  all  sense  of  reasonable  constraint, 
and  to  disport  themselves  as  if  they  had  at  length 
escaped  into  a  region  free  from  scientific  trammels 
— a  region  where  confident  assertions  might  be 
freely  made,  where  speculative  hypothesis  might 
rank  as  theory,  and  where  verification  was  both 
unnecessary  and  impossible. 

The  most  striking  instance  of  a  scientific  man 
who  on  entering  philosophic  territory  has  exhibited 
signs  of  exhilaration  and  emancipation,  is  furnished 
by  the  case  of  Professor  Haeckel  of  Jena.  In  an 
eloquent  and  popular  work,  entitled  Das  Welt- 


Monism  3 

Rdthsel,  The  World-Problem,  or  The  Riddle  of  the 
Universe,  this  eminent  biologist  has  surveyed  the 
whole  range  of  existence,  from  the  foundations  of 
physics  to  the  comparison  of  religions,  from  the 
facts  of  anatomy  to  the  freedom  of  the  will,  from 
the  vitality  of  cells  to  the  attributes  of  God ;  treat- 
ing these  subjects  with  wide  though  by  no  means 
superhuman  knowledge,  and  with  considerable 
critical  and  literary  ability.  This  work,  through 
the  medium  of  a  really  excellent  translation  by  Mr. 
McCabe,  and  under  the  auspices  of  the  Rationalist 
Press  Association,  has  obtained  a  wide  circulation 
in  England,  being  purchasable  for  sixpence  at 
any  bookstall;  where  one  often  finds  it  accom- 
panied by  another  still  more  popular  and  equally 
cheap  treatise  by  the  same  author,  a  digest  or  sum- 
mary of  the  religious  aspect  of  his  scientific  philo- 
sophy, under  the  title  The  Confession  of  Faith  of  a 
Man  of  Science. 

Professor  Ilaeckcl's  credentials,  as  a  learned 
biologist  who  introduced  Darwinism  into  Germany, 
doubtless  stand  high ;  and  it  is  a  great  tribute  to 
his  literary  ability  that  a  fairly  abstruse  work  on  so 
comprehensive  a  subject  should  have  obtained  a 


2  Life  and  Matter 

pleasure  in  overlooking  the  boundary  and  making 
a  wide  survey  of  the  position  on  its  physical  side — 
a  thing  which  it  is  i-urely  very  desirable  for  a 
philosopher  to  do. 

But  if  that  process  be  regarded  as  satisfactory,  it 
is  surely  equally  permissible  for  a  man  of  science 
occasionally  to  look  over  into  the  philosophic 
region,  and  to  survey  the  territory  on  that  side  also, 
so  far  as  his  means  permit.  And  if  philosophers 
object  to  this  procedure,  it  must  be  because  they 
have  found  by  experience  that  men  of  science  who 
have  once  transcended  or  transgressed  the  boundary 
are  apt  to  lose  all  sense  of  reasonable  constraint, 
and  to  disport  themselves  as  if  they  had  at  length 
escaped  into  a  region  free  from  scientific  trammels 
— a  region  where  confident  assertions  might  be 
freely  made,  where  speculative  hypothesis  might 
rank  as  theory,  and  where  verification  was  both 
unnecessary  and  impossible. 

The  most  striking  instance  of  a  scientific  man 
who  on  entering  philosophic  territory  has  exhibited 
signs  of  exhilaration  and  emancipation,  is  furnished 
by  the  case  of  Professor  Haeckel  of  Jena.  In  an 
eloquent  and  popular  work,  entitled  Das  Welt- 


Monism  3 

Rathsel,  The  World-Problem,  or  The  Riddle  of  the 
Universe,  this  eminent  biologist  has  surveyed  the 
whole  range  of  existence,  from  the  foundations  of 
physics  to  the  comparison  of  religions,  from  the 
facts  of  anatomy  to  the  freedom  of  the  will,  from 
the  vitality  of  cells  to  the  attributes  of  God ;  treat- 
ing these  subjects  with  wide  though  by  no  means 
superhuman  knowledge,  and  with  considerable 
critical  and  literary  ability.  This  work,  through 
the  medium  of  a  really  excellent  translation  by  Mr. 
McCabe,  and  under  the  auspices  of  the  Rationalist 
Press  Association,  has  obtained  a  wide  circulation 
in  England,  being  purchasable  for  sixpence  at 
any  bookstall;  where  one  often  finds  it  accom- 
panied by  another  still  more  popular  and  equally 
cheap  treatise  by  the  same  author,  a  digest  or  sum- 
mary of  the  religious  aspect  of  his  scientific  philo- 
sophy, under  the  title  The  Confession  of  Faith  of  a 
Man  of  Science. 

Professor  Ilaeckcl's  credentials,  as  a  learned 
biologist  who  introduced  Darwinism  into  Germany, 
doubtless  stand  high;  and  it  is  a  great  tribute  to 
his  literary  ability  that  a  fairly  abstruse  work  on  so 
comprehensive  a  subject  should  have  obtained  a 


6  Life  and  Matter 

that  you  hold  in  your  hands  a  treatise  in  which  the 
ultimate  and  final  verity  of  the  universe  is  at  length 
beautifully  proclaimed,  and  in  which  pure  truth  has 
been  sifted  from  the  errors  of  all  preceding  ages. 
Do  not  think  it,  friend :  it  is  not  so. 

For  what  is  this  same  "Monism  "? 

Professor  Haeckel  writes  almost  as  if  it  were  a 
recent  invention,  but  in  truth,  there  have  been  many 
versions  of  it,  and  in  one  form  or  another,  the  idea  is 
quite  old,  older  than  Plato,  as  old  as  Parmenides. 

The  name  "Monism"  should  apply  to  any  philo- 
sophic system  which  assumes  and  attempts  to 
formulate  the  essential  simplicity  and  oneness  of  all 
the  apparent  diversity  of  sensual  impression  and 
consciousness,  any  system  which  seeks  to  exhibit 
all  the  complexities  of  existence,  both  material  and 
mental — the  whole  of  phenomena,  both  objective 
and  subjective — as  modes  of  manifestation  of  one 
fundamental  reality. 

According  to  the  assumed  nature  of  that  reality, 
different  brands  of  monistic  theory  exist : 

i.  There  is  the  hypothesis  that  everything  is  an 
aspect  of  some  unknown  absolute  Reality,  which 
itself,  in  its  real  nature,  is  far  beyond  our  appre- 


Monism  7 

hension  or  conception.  And  within  the  broad  area 
thus  suggested  may  be  grouped  such  utterly  differ- 
ent universe-conceptions  as  that  of  Herbert  Spencer 
and  that  of  Spinoza. 

2.  According  to  another  system,  the  fundamental 
reality  is  psychical,  is  consciousness,  let  us  say,  or 
mind ;  and  the  material  world  has  only  the  reality 
appropriate  to  a  consistent  set  of  ideas.     Here  we 
find  again   several  varieties,    ranging  from   Bishop 
Berkeley  and  presumably  Hegel,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  William  James — who,  in  so  far  as  he  is  a  monist 
at  all,  may  I  suppose  be  called  an  empirical  idealist 
— and  solipsists  such  as  Mach  and  Karl  Pearson,  on 
the  other. 

3.  A  third  system,  or  group  of  systems,  has  been 
in  vogue  among  some  physicists  of  an  earlier  day, 
and  among  some  biologists  now,  viz.,  that  mind, 
thought,  consciousness,  are  all  by-products,   phan- 
tasmagoria, epiphenomena,  developments,  and  de- 
corations,    as    it     were,    of    the    one    fundamental 
all-embracing  reality,  which  some  may  call  "mat- 
ter," some  "energy,"  and  some  "substance."     In 
this    category    we    find    Tyndall — at    any   rate   the 
Tyndall  of  "the  Belfast  address" — and  here  con- 


8  Life  and  Matter 

sistently  do  we  find  Haeckel,  together  with  several 
other  biologists. 

This  last  system  of  Monism,  though  not  now 
in  favour  with  philosophers,  is  the  most  militant 
variety  of  all;  and  accordingly,  it  has  in  some 
quarters  managed  to  obtain,  and  it  certainly  seems 
anxious  to  obtain,  a  monopoly  of  the  name. 

But  the  monopoly  should  not  be  granted.  The 
name  Materialism  is  quite  convenient  for  it,  just  as 
Idealism  is  for  the  opposing  system ;  and  if  either 
of  these  titles  is  objected  to  by  the  upholders  of 
either  system,  as  apparently  too  thorough-going 
and  exclusive,  whereas  only  a  tendency  in  one  or 
other  direction  is  to  be  indicated,  then  the  longer 
but  more  descriptive  titles  of  Idealistic-monism  and 
Materialistic-monism  respectively  should  be  em- 
ployed. But  neither  of  these  compromises  seems 
necessary  to  connote  the  position  of  Professor 
Haeckel. 

The  truth  is  that  all  philosophy  aims  at  being 
monistic ;  it  is  bound  to  aim  at  unification,  however 
difficult  of  attainment  ;  and  a  philosopher  who 
abandoned  the  quest,  and  contented  himself  with  a 
permanent  antinomy — a  universe  compounded  of 


Monism  9 

two  or  more  irreconcilable  and  entirely  disparate 
and  disconnected  agencies — would  be  held  to  be 
throwing  up  his  brief  as  a  philosopher  and  taking 
refuge  in  a  kind  of  permanent  Manichseism,  which 
experience  has  shown  to  be  an  untenable  and  ultim- 
ately unthinkable  position. 

An  attempt  at  Monism  is  therefore  common  to 
all  philosophers,  whether  professional  or  amateur; 
and  the  only  question  at  issue  is  what  sort  of  Mon- 
ism are  you  aiming  at,  what  sort  of  solution  of  the 
universe  have  you  to  offer,  what  can  you  hold  out 
to  us  as  a  simple  satisfactory  comprehensive  scheme 
of  existence? 

In  order  to  estimate  the  value  of  Professor 
Haeckel's  scheme  of  the  universe,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  appeal  to  philosophers:  it  is  sufficient  to 
meet  him  on  scientific  ground,  and  to  show  that  in 
his  effort  to  simplify  and  unify  he  has  under- 
estimated some  classes  of  fact  and  has  stretched 
scientific  theory  into  regions  of  guesswork  and 
hypothesis,  where  it  loses  touch  with  real  science 
altogether.  The  facts  which  he  chooses  gratuitously 
to  deny,  and  the  facts  which  he  chooses  vigor- 
ously to  emphasise,  are  arbitrarily  selected  by  him 


io  Life  and  Matter 

according  as  they  will  or  will  not  fit  into  his  philo- 
sophic scheme.  The  scheme  itself  is  no  new  one, 
and  almost  certainly  contains  elements  of  truth. 
Some  day  far  hence,  when  it  is  possible  properly  to 
formulate  it,  a  system  of  Monism  may  be  devised 
which  shall  contain  the  whole  truth.  At  present, 
the  scheme  formulated  by  Professor  Haeckel  must 
to  philosophers  appear  rudimentary  and  antiquated, 
while  to  men  of  science  it  appears  gratuitous,  hypo- 
thetical, in  some  places  erroneous,  and  altogether 
unconvincing. 

Before  everything,  a  philosopher  should  aim  at 
being  all-inclusive;  before  everything,  a  man  of 
science  should  aim  at  being  definite,  clear,  and  ac- 
curate. An  attempt  at  combination  is  an  ambitious 
attempt,  which  may  legitimately  be  made,  but 
which  it  appears  is  hardly  as  yet  given  to  man  to 
make  successfully.  Attempts  at  an  all-embracing 
scheme,  which  shall  be  both  truly  philosophic  and 
truly  scientific,  must  for  the  present  be  mistrusted, 
and  the  mistrust  should  extend  especially  to  their 
negative  side.  Positive  contributions,  either  to 
fact  or  to  system,  may  be  real  and  should  be  wel- 
come; but  negative  or  destructive  criticism,  the 


Monism  it 

eschewing  and  throwing  away  of  any  part  of  human 
experience,  because  it  is  inconsistent  with  a  prema- 
ture and  ill-considered  monistic  or  any  other  system, 
should  be  regarded  with  deep  suspicion ;  and  the 
promulgation  of  any  such  negative  and  destructive 
scheme,  especially  in  association  with  free  and  easy 
dogmatism,  should  automatically  excite  mistrust 
and  repulsion. 

There  are  things  which  cannot  yet  be  fitted  in  as 
part  of  a  coherent  scheme  of  scientific  knowledge — 
at  present  they  appear  like  fragments  of  another 
order  of  things;  and  if  they  are  to  be  forced  into 
the  scientific  framework,  like  portions  of  a  "puzzle- 
map,"  before  their  true  place  has  been  discovered, 
a  quantity  of  substantial  fact  must  be  disarranged, 
dislocated,  and  thrown  away.  A  premature  and 
cheap  Monism  is  therefore  worse  than  none  at  all. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  LAW  OF  SUBSTANCE 

1  SHALL  now  endeavour  to  exhibit  the  way  in 
which  Professor  Haeckel  proceeds  to  expound 
his  views,  and  for  that  purpose  shall  extract  certain 
sentences  from  his  work,  The  Riddle  of  the  Universe; 
giving  references  to  the  sixpenny  translation,  now 
so  widely  circulated  in  England,  in  order  that  with 
ease  they  may  be  referred  to  in  their  context.  To 
scientific  men,  the  exaggeration  of  statement  will  in 
many  cases  be  immediately  obvious;  but  in  the 
present  state  of  general  education,  it  will  often  be 
necessary  to  append  a  few  comments,  indicating,  as 
briefly  as  possible,  wherein  the  statement  is  in  ex- 
cess of  ascertained  fact,  however  interesting  as  a 
guess  or  speculation;  wherefore  it  must  be  con- 
sidered illegitimate  as  a  weapon  wherewith  to  attack 
other  systems,  so  far  as  they  too  are  equally  en- 
titled to  be  considered  reasonable  guesses  at  truth. 
The  central  scientific  doctrines  upon  which  Pro- 


The  Law  of  Substance  13 

fessor  Haeckel's  philosophy  is  founded  appear  to 
be  two  —  one  physical,  the  other  biological.  The 
physical  doctrine  is  what  he  calls  "the  Law  of  Sub- 
stance"— a  kind  of  combination  of  the  conservation 
of  matter  and  the  conservation  of  energy :  a  law  to 
which  he  attaches  extraordinary  importance,  and 
from  which  he  draws  momentous  conclusions. 
Ultimately,  he  seems  to  regard  this  law  as  almost 
axiomatic,  in  the  sense  that  a  philosopher  who  has 
properly  grasped  it  is  unable  to  conceive  the  nega- 
tive. A  few  extracts  will  suffice  to  show  the  re- 
markable importance  which  he  attaches  to  this  law : 

"All  the  particular  advances  of  physics  and 
chemistry  yield  in  theoretical  importance  to  the 
discovery  of  the  great  law  which  brings  them  to 
one  common  focus,  the  'law  of  substance.'  As  this 
fundamental  cosmic  law  establishes  the  eternal 
persistence  of  matter  and  force,  their  unvarying 
constancy  throughout  the  entire  universe,  it  has 
become  the  pole-star  that  guides  our  monistic  philo- 
sophy through  the  mighty  labyrinth  to  a  solution 
of  the  world-problem"  (p.  2). 

"The  uneducated  member  of  a  civilised  commun- 
ity is  surrounded  with  countless  enigmas  at  every 
step,  just  as  truly  as  the  savage.  Their  number, 
however,  decreases  with  every  stride  of  civilisation 
and  of  science;  and  the  monistic  philosophy  is 


H  Life  and  Matter 

ultimately  confronted  with  but  one  simple  and  com- 
prehensive  enigma — the   'problem  of  substance'  ' 
(p.  6). 

"The  supreme  and  all-pervading  law  of  nature, 
the  true  and  only  cosmological  law,  is,  in  my  opin- 
ion, the  law  of  substance ;  its  discovery  and  estab- 
lishment is  the  greatest  intellectual  triumph  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  in  the  sense  that  all  other 
known  laws  of  nature  are  subordinate  to  it.  Under 
the  name  of  'law  of  substance*  we  embrace  two 
supreme  laws  of  different  origin  and  age — the  older 
is  the  chemical  law  of  the  'conservation  of  matter,' 
and  the  younger  is  the  physical  law  of  the  'con- 
servation of  energy.'  It  will  be  self-evident  to 
many  readers,  and  it  is  acknowledged  by  most  of 
the  scientific  men  of  the  day,  that  these  two  great 
laws  are  essentially  inseparable"  (p.  75). 

"The  conviction  that  these  two  great  cosmic 
theorems,  the  chemical  law  of  the  persistence  of 
matter  and  the  physical  law  of  the  persistence  of 
force,  are  fundamentally  one,  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance in  our  monistic  system.  The  two  theories 
are  just  as  intimately  united  as  their  objects — mat- 
ter and  force  or  energy.  Indeed,  this  fundamental 
unity  of  the  two  laws  is  self-evident  to  many  mon- 
istic scientists  and  philosophers,  since  they  merely 
relate  to  two  different  aspects  of  one  and  the  same 
object,  the  cosmos'  (p.  76). 

"I  proposed  some  time  ago  to  call  it  the  'law  of 
substance,'  or  the  'fundamental  cosmic  law';  it 
might  also  be  called  the  'universal  law,'  or  the  'law 
of  constancy,'  or  the  'axiom  of  the  constancy  of  the 


The  Law  of  Substance  15 

universe.'  In  the  ultimate  analysis,  it  is  found  to 
be  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  principle  of 
causality." 

I  criticise  these  utterances  below,  and  in  Chapter 
IV.  I  also  quote  extracts  bearing  on  the  subject 
from  Professor  Huxley ;  but  meanwhile,  Profes- 
sor Haeckel  is  as  positive  as  any  Positivist,  and 
runs  no  risk  of  being  accused  of  Solipsism : 

"Our  only  real  and  valuable  knowledge  is  a 
knowledge  of  nature  itself,  and  consists  of  presenta- 
tions which  correspond  to  external  things. 
These  presentations  we  call  true,  and  we  are  con- 
vinced that  their  content  corresponds  to  the  know- 
able  aspect  of  things.  We  know  that  these  facts  are 
not  imaginary,  but  real"  (p.  104). 

He  also  tends  to  become  sentimental  about  the 
ultimate  reality  as  he  perceives  it,  and  tries  to  con- 
struct from  it  a  kind  of  religion : 

"The  astonishment  with  which  we  gaze  upon  the 
starry  heavens  and  the  microscopic  life  in  a  drop  of 
water,  the  awe  with  which  we  trace  the  marvellous 
working  of  energy  in  the  motion  of  matter,  the 
reverence  with  which  we  grasp  the  universal  domin- 
ance of  the  law  of  substance  throughout  the  universe 
— all  these  are  part  of  our  emotional  life,  falling 
under  the  heading  of  'natural  religion'  "  (p.  122). 


1 6  Life  and  Matter 

"Pantheism  teaches  that  God  and  the  world  are 
one.  The  idea  of  God  is  identical  with  that  of 
nature  or  substance.  ...  In  pantheism,  God, 
as  an  intra-mundane  being,  is  everywhere  identical 
with  nature  itself,  and  is  operative  within  the  world 
as  'force'  or  'energy.'  The  latter  view  alone  is 
compatible  with  our  supreme  law — the  law  of  sub- 
stance. It  follows  necessarily  that  pantheism  is  the 
-world-system  of  the  modern  scientist  "  (p.  102). 

"This  'godless  world-system'  substantially  agrees 
with  the  monism  or  pantheism  of  the  modern  scien- 
tist ;  it  is  only  another  expression  for  it,  emphasising 
its  negative  aspect,  the  non-existence  of  any  super- 
natural deity.  In  this  sense,  Schopenhauer  justly 
remarks : 

"  'Pantheism  is  only  a  polite  form  of  atheism. 
The  truth  of  pantheism  lies  in  its  destruction  of  the 
dualist  antithesis  of  God  and  the  world,  in  its  recog- 
nition that  the  world  exists  in  virtue  of  its  own 
inherent  forces.  The  maxim  of  the  pantheist,  "God 
and  the  world  are  one,"  is  merely  a  polite  way  of 
giving  the  Lord  God  his  conge"  "  (p.  103). 

Thus  we  are  led  on,  from  what  may  be  supposed 
to  be  a  bare  statement  of  two  recent  generalisations 
of  science, — first  of  all  to  regard  them  as  almost 
axiomatic  or  self-evident;  next,  to  consider  that 
they  solve  the  main  problem  of  the  universe; 
and,  lastly,  that  they  suffice  to  replace  the  Deity 
Himself. 


The  Law  of  Substance  1 7 

To  curb  these  extravagant  pretensions,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  consider  soberly  what  these  physical 
laws  really  assert. 

Conservation  of  Energy 

Take  first  the  conservation  of  energy.  This 
generalisation  asserts  that  in  every  complete  ma- 
terial system,  subject  to  any  kind  of  internal  activ- 
ity, the  total  energy  of  the  system  does  not  change, 
but  is  subject  merely  to  transference  and  trans- 
formation, and  can  only  be  increased  or  diminished 
by  passing  fresh  energy  in  or  out  through  the  walls 
of  the  system.  So  far  from  this  being  self-evident,  it 
required  very  careful  measurement  and  experimental 
proof  to  demonstrate  the  fact,  for  in  common 
experience,  the  energy  of  a  system  left  to  itself 
continually  to  all  appearance  diminishes;  yet  it  has 
been  skilfully  proved  that  when  the  heat  and  every 
other  kind  of  product  are  collected  and  measured, 
the  result  can  be  so  expressed  as  to  show  a  total 
constancy,  appertaining  to  a  certain  specially  de- 
vised function  called  "energy,"  provided  we  know 
and  are  able  to  account  for  every  form  into  which 
the  said  energy  can  be  transformed  by  the  activity 


1 8  Life  and  Matter 

going  on.  A  very  important  generalisation  truly, 
and  one  which  has  so  seized  hold  of  the  mind  of  the 
physicist  that  if  in  any  actual  example,  a  disap- 
pearance or  a  generation  of  energy  were  found,  he 
would  at  once  conclude  either  that  he  had  over- 
looked some  known  form  and  thereby  committed 
an  error,  or  that  some  unknown  form  was  present 
which  he  had  not  allowed  for:  thereby  getting  a 
clue  which,  if  followed  up,  he  would  hope  might 
result  in  a  discovery. 

But  the  term  "energy"  itself,  as  used  in  definite 
sense  by  the  physicist,  rather  involves  a  modern 
idea  and  is  itself  a  generalisation.  Things  as  dis- 
tinct from  each  other  as  light,  heat,  sound,  rotation, 
vibration,  elastic  strain,  gravitative  separation,  elec- 
tric currents,  and  chemical  affinity,  have  all  to  be 
generalised  under  the  same  heading,  in  order  to 
make  the  law  true.  Until  "heat"  was  included  in 
the  list  of  energies,  the  statement  could  not  be 
made;  and,  a  short  time  ago,  it  was  sometimes  dis- 
cussed whether  "life"  should  or  should  not  be 
included  in  the  category  of  energy.  I  should  give 
the  answer  decidedly  No,  but  some  might  be  in- 
clined to  say  Yes;  and  this  is  sufficient  as  an 


The  Law  of  Substance  19 

example  to  show  that  the  categories  of  energy  are 
not  necessarily  exhausted ;  that  new  forms  may  be 
discovered ;  and  that  if  new  forms  exist,  until  they 
are  discovered,  the  law  of  conservation  of  energy  as 
now  stated  may  in  some  cases  be  strictly  untrue; 
just  as  it  would  be  untrue,  though  partially  and 
usefully  true,  in  the  theory  of  machines,  if  heat 
were  unknown  or  ignored.  To  jump,  therefore, 
from  a  generalisation  such  as  this,  and  to  say,  as 
Professor  Haeckel  does  on  page  5,  that  the  follow- 
ing cosmological  theorems  have  already  been  amply 
demonstrated,  is  to  leap  across  a  considerable 
chasm  : 

"i.  The  universe,  or  the  cosmos,  is  eternal,  in- 
finite, and  illimitable. 

"2.  Its  substance,  with  its  two  attributes  (matter 
and  energy),  fills  infinite  space,  and  is  in  eternal 
motion. 

"3.  This  motion  runs  on  through  infinite  time  as 
an  unbroken  development,  with  a  periodic  change 
from  life  to  death,  from  evolution  to  devolution. 

"4.  The  innumerable  bodies  which  are  scattered 
about  the  space-filling  ether  all  obey  the  same  'law 
of  substance' ;  while  the  rotating  masses  slowly  move 
towards  their  destruction  and  dissolution  in  one  part 
of  space,  others  are  springing  into  new  life  and 
development  in  other  quarters  of  the  universe." 


20  Life  and  Matter 

* 

Most  of  this,  though  in  itself  probable  enough, 
must,  when  scientifically  regarded,  be  rated  as 
guesswork,  being  an  overpressing  of  known  fact 
into  an  exaggerated  and  over-comprehensive  form 
of  statement.  Let  it  be  understood  that  I  am  not 
objecting  to  his  speculations,  but  only  pointing  out 
that  they  are  speculations. 

The  conservation  of  energy  is  a  sufficiently  legiti- 
mate generalisation :  we  do  not  really  doubt  its  con- 
servation and  constancy  when  we  admit  that  we  are 
not  yet  sure  of  having  fully  and  finally  exhausted 
the  whole  category  of  energy.  What  we  do  grant 
is,  that  it  may  hereafter  be  possible  to  discover  new 
forms;  and  when  new  forms  are  discovered,  then 
either  the  definition  may  have  to  be  modified,  or 
else  the  detailed  statement  at  present  found  suffi- 
cient will  have  to  be  overhauled.  But,  after  all,  this 
is  not  specially  important :  the  serious  mistake 
which  people  are  apt  to  make  concerning  this  law 
of  energy  is  to  imagine  that  it  denies  the  possibility 
of  guidance,  control,  or  directing  agency,  whereas 
really  it  has  nothing  to  say  on  these  topics ;  it  re- 
lates to  amount  alone.  Philosophers  have  been  far 
too  apt  to  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  because 


The  Law  of  Substance  2 1 

energy  is  constant,  therefore  no  guidance  is  pos- 
sible, so  that  all  psychological  or  other  interference 
is  precluded.  Physicists,  however,  know  better; 
though  unfortunately  Tyndall,  in  some  papers  on 
Miracles  and  Prayer,  thoughtlessly  adduced  the 
conservation  of  energy  as  decisive.  This  question 
of  "guidance"  is  one  of  great  interest,  and  I  em- 
phasise the  subject  farther  on. 

Conservation  of  Matter 

Take  next  the  "conservation  of  matter" — which 
means  that  in  any  operation,  mechanical,  physical, 
or  chemical,  to  which  matter  can  be  subjected,  its 
amount,  as  measured  by  weight,  remains  un- 
changed ;  so  that  the  only  way  to  increase  or 
diminish  the  weight  of  substance  inside  a  given 
enclosure,  or  geometrically  closed  boundary,  is  to 
pass  matter  in  or  out  through  the  walls. 

This  law  has  been  called  the  sheet-anchor  of 
chemistry,  but  it  is  very  far  from  being  self-evident ; 
and  its  statement  involves  the  finding  of  a  property 
of  matter  which  experimentally  shall  remain  un- 
changed, although  nearly  every  other  property  is 


22  Life  and  Matter 

modified.  To  superficial  observation,  nothing  is 
easier  than  to  destroy  matter.  When  liquid — when 
dew,  for  instance  —  evaporates,  it  seems  to  disap- 
pear and  when  a  manuscript  is  burned,  it  is  certainly 
destroyed;  but  it  turns  out  that  there  is  something 
which  may  be  called  the  vapour  of  water,  or  the 
"matter"  of  the  letter,  which  still  persists,  though 
it  has  taken  rarer  form  and  become  unrecognisable. 
Ultimately,  in  order  to  express  the  persistence  of 
the  permanent  abstraction  called  "matter"  clearly, 
it  is  necessary  to  speak  of  the  "ultimate  atoms"  of 
which  it  is  composed,  and  to  say  that  though  these 
may  enter  into  various  combinations,  and  thereby 
display  many  outward  forms,  yet  that  they  them- 
selves are  immutable  and  indestructible,  constant  in 
number  and  quality  and  form,  not  subject  to  any 
law  of  evolution;  in  other  words,  totally  unaffected 
by  time. 

If  we  ask  for  the  evidence  on  which  this  general- 
isation is  founded,  we  have  to  appeal  to  various 
delicate  weighings,  conducted  chiefly  for  practical 
purposes  by  chemists,  and  very  few  of  them  really 
directed  to  ascertain  whether  the  law  is  true  or  not. 
A  few  such  direct  experiments  are  now,  indeed, 


The  Law  of  Substance  23 

being  conducted  with  the  hope  of  finding  that  the 
law  is  not  completely  true ;  in  other  words,  with 
the  hope  of  finding  that  the  weight  of  a  body  does 
depend  slightly  on  its  state  of  aggregation  or  on 
some  other  physical  property.  The  question  has 
even  been  raised  whether  the  weight  of  a  crystal  is 
altogether  independent  of  its  aspect :  the  direction 
of  its  plane  of  cleavage  with  reference  to  the  earth's 
radius ;  also,  whether  the  temperature  of  bodies  has 
any  influence  on  their  weight ;  but  on  these  points  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  if  any  difference  were  dis- 
covered it  would  not  be  expressed  by  saying  that 
the  amount  of  matter  was  different,  but  simply  that 
"weight"  was  not  so  fundamental  and  inalienable  a 
property  of  matter  as  has  been  sometimes  assumed; 
in  which  case,  it  is  clear  that  there  must  be  a  more 
fundamental  property  to  which  appeal  can  be  made 
in  favour  of  constancy  or  persistency  or  conserva- 
tion. Now  the  most  fundamental  property  of  mat- 
ter known  is  undoubtedly  "inertia";  and  the  law 
of  conservation  would  therefore  come  to  mean  that 
the  inertia  of  matter  was  constant,  no  matter  what 
changes  it  underwent.  But,  then,  inertia  is  not 
an  easy  property  to  measure,  —  very  difficult  to 


24  Life  and  Matter 

measure  with  great  accuracy :  it  is  in  practice  nearly 
always  inferred  from  weight ;  and  in  terms  of  inertia, 
the  law  of  conservation  of  matter  cannot  be  con- 
sidered really  an  experimental  fact;  it  is,  strictly 
speaking,  a  reasonable  hypothesis,  an  empirical  law, 
which  we  have  never  seen  any  reason  to  doubt,  and 
in  support  of  which  all  scientific  experience  may  be 
adduced  in  favour. 

It  is  possible,  however,  to  grant  to  Professor 
Haeckel — not  positively,  but  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, and  giving  him  the  benefit  of  our  present 
ignorance — that  it  is  unlikely  that  matter  in  its  low- 
est denomination  can  by  us  be  created  or  destroyed. 
For,  although  it  is  now  pretty  well  known  that 
atoms  of  matter  are  not  the  indestructible  and  im- 
mutable things  they  were  once  thought  (seeing  that 
although  we  do  not  know  how  to  break  them  up, 
they  are  liable  every  now  and  then  themselves  to 
break  up  or  explode,  and  so  resolve  themselves  into 
simpler  forms),  yet  it  can  be  granted  that  these 
simpler  forms  are  likewise  themselves  atoms,  in  the 
same  sense,  and  that  if  they  break  up  they  will 
break  up  likewise  into  atoms;  or  ultimately,  it  may 
be,  into  those  corpuscles  or  electrons  or  electric 


The  Law  of  Substance  25 

charges,  of  which  one  plausible  theory  conjectures 
that  the  atoms  of  matter  are  really  composed. 

Supposing  an  atom  thus  broken  up  into  electrons, 
its  weight  may  possibly  have  disappeared.  We 
simply  do  not  know  whether  weight  is  a  property 
of  the  grouping  called  an  atom,  or  whether  it  be- 
longs also  to  the  individual  ingredients  or  corpuscles 
of  that  atom.  There  is  at  present  no  evidence. 
But  whether  weight  has  disappeared  or  not,  it  is 
quite  certain,  for  definite  though  rather  recondite 
theoretical  reasons,  that  the  inertia  would  not  have 
disappeared ;  and  accordingly  it  may  be  held,  and 
must  be  held  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge, 
that  the  constancy  of  fundamental  material  still 
holds  good,  even  though  the  atoms  are  resolved 
into  electric  charges — an  amount  of  destruction 
never  contemplated  by  those  chemists  and  physicists 
who  promulgated  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation 
of  matter. 

Electrical  Theory  of  Matter 

But  then,  on  the  electrical  theory  of  matter,  even 
inertia  is  not  the  thoroughly  constant  property  we 
once  thought  it.  It  is  a  function  of  velocity  for  one 


26  Life  and  Matter 

thing,  and  when  speeds  become  excessive,  the  iner- 
tia of  matter  rises  perceptibly  in  value.  The  fact 
that  it  would  rise  in  value  by  a  calculable  amount, 
and  that  the  rise  would  be  perceptible  when  the 
speed  of  motion  approached  in  value  to  within,  say, 
a  tenth  of  the  velocity  of  light,  was  predicted 
mathematically ' ;  and  now,  strange  to  say,  it  has 
recently  become  possible  to  observe  and  actually 
measure  the  increase  of  inertia  experimentally,  and 
thus  to  confirm  the  electrical  theory  not  only  as 
qualitatively  or  approximately  true,  but  as  com- 
pletely and  quantitatively  accurate.  A  remarkable 
achievement  all  this!  of  quite  modern  times,  which 
has  not  excited  the  attention  it  deserves  —  save 
among  physicists. 

But  even  this  is  not  all  that  can  be  said  as  to  the 
fluctuating  character  of  that  fundamental  material 
quality  "inertia."  It  appears  possible,  if  electrons 
approach  too  near  each  other,  so  as  to  encroach  on 
each  other's  magnetic  field  as  they  move,  that  then 
their  inertia  may  fall  in  value  during  the  time  they 
are  contiguous.  No  experimental  fact  has  yet 
suggested  this  at  present :  it  is  improbable  that  even 
1  By  Mr.  Oliver  Heaviside  and  Prof.  J.  J.  Thomson. 


The  Law  of  Substance  27 

in  the  tightest  combinations  they  ever  really  ap- 
proach close  enough  to  each  other  to  make  the 
effect  appreciable  in  the  slightest  degree;  still, 
strictly  speaking,  the  inertia  of  matter  is  a  known 
mathematical  function  of  the  distance  of  electrons 
apart,  compared  with  their  size,  as  well  as  of  their 
absolute  speed  through  the  ether,  and  hence  it  may 
be  found  to  vary  from  either  of  two  distinct  reasons. 
Nevertheless,  even  this  variation  would  not  be  ex- 
pressed as  a  failure  in  the  conservation  of  matter, 
though  there  is  now  no  single  material  property 
that  can  be  specified  as  really  and  genuinely  con- 
stant. So  long  as  the  electric  centres  of  strain,  or 
whatever  they  are, — so  long  as  the  electric  charges 
themselves, — continue  unaltered,  we  should  prefer 
to  say  that  at  least  the  basis  of  matter  was  funda- 
mentally conserved. 

Further  than  this,  however,  we  cannot  go ;  and 
to  say,  as  Professor  Haeckel  says,  that  the  modern 
physicist  has  grown  so  accustomed  to  the  conserva- 
tion of  matter  that  he  is  unable  to  conceive  the 
contrary,  is  simply  untrue.  Whatever  may  be  the 
case  in  real  fact,  there  is  no  question  with  respect 
to  the  possibility  of  conception.  The  electrons 


28  Life  and  Matter 

themselves  must  be  explained  somehow;  and  the 
only  surmise  which  at  present  holds  the  field  is  that 
they  are  knots  or  twists  or  vortices,  or  some  sort  of 
either  static  or  kinetic  modification,  of  the  ether  of 
space — a  small  bit  partitioned  off  from  the  rest  and 
individualised  by  reason  of  this  identifying  peculiar- 
ity. It  may  be  that  these  knots  cannot  be  untied, 
these  twists  undone,  these  vortices  broken  up;  it 
may  be  that  neither  artificially  nor  spontaneously 
are  they  ever  in  the  slightest  degree  changed.  It 
may  be  so,  but  we  do  not  know;  and  it  is  quite 
easy  to  conceive  them  broken  up,  the  identity  of 
the  electron  lost,  its  substance  resolved  into  the 
original  ether,  without  parts  or  individual  proper- 
ties. If  this  happened  within  our  ken,  we  should 
have  to  confess  that  the  properties  of  matter  were 
gone,  and  that  hence  everything  that  could  by  any 
stretch  of  language  be  called  "matter"  was  de- 
stroyed, since  no  identifying  property  remained. 
The  discovery  of  such  an  event  may  lie  in  the 
science  of  the  future;  it  would  be  an  epoch-making 
event  in  the  history  of  science,  but  no  physicist 
would  be  upset  by  it,  perhaps  not  even  surprised; 
nor  would  any  one  have  good  reason  to  be  aston- 


The  Law  of  Substance  29 

ished  if  the  correlative  phenomenon  occurred,  and 
under  certain  conditions  some  knots  or  strains  were 
some  day  caused  in  the  ether,  which  had  not  been 
previously  there,  and  so  "matter,"  or  the  founda- 
tion of  matter,  artificially  produced ;  in  other  words, 
the  destruction  and  the  creation  of  matter  are  well 
within  the  range  of  scientific  conception,  and  may 
be  within  the  realm  of  experimental  possibility. 

Persistence  of  the  Existent 

Is  there,  then,  no  meaning  in  the  conception 
which  Professor  Haeckel  and  others  have  so  enthus- 
iastically formulated,  and  which  certainly  commends 
itself  to  every  one  as  representing  in  some  sense  a 
genuine  truth,  whether  it  be  called  a  "law  of  sub- 
stance" or  whatever  it  be  called?  There  does  seem 
a  certain  plausibility  in  the  idea,  pure  guess  or  as- 
sumption though  it  be,  that  anything  which  really 
and  fundamentally  exists,  in  a  serious  and  untrivial 
and  non-accidental  sense,  can  be  trusted  not  sud- 
denly to  go  out  of  existence  and  leave  no  trace 
behind.  In  other  words,  there  seems  some  reason 
to  suppose  that  anything  which  actually  exists  must 
be  in  some  way  or  other  perpetual;  that  real 


30  Life  and  Matter 

existence  is  not  a  capricious  and  changing  attribute: 
arbitrary  collocations  and  accidental  relations  may 
and  must  be  temporary,  but  there  may  be  in  each 
a  fundamental  substratum  which,  if  it  can  be 
reached,  will  be  found  to  be  eternal.  I  develop 
this  idea  further  in  the  sequel.  This  is,  at  any  rate, 
what  Professor  Haeckel  was  evidently  groping  after, 
as  many  others  have  groped  before  him,  and  the 
nature  of  this  fundamental  persistent  entity  or 
entities  (for  we  must  not  assume  without  proof  that 
there  is  only  one :  there  may  be  several,  and  at  any 
rate,  their  ultimate  unification  may  be  a  still  further 
advanced  and  more  transcendental  problem)  may 
with  some  appropriateness  be  called  "the  problem 
of  the  universe,"  since  it  is  clearly  the  problem  of 
existence.  Professor  Haeckel  thinks  he  has  solved 
the  problem,  grasped  the  fundamental  reality,  and 
found  it  to  be  matter  and  energy  and  nothing  else; 
though  why  he  chooses  to  consider  matter  and 
energy  as  one  thing  instead  of  two  is  not  perfectly 
plain  to  me,  nor,  I  venture  to  say,  is  it  really  plain 
to  him. 

Making    the    assumption,    then,    that    there    is 
something,  or  that  there  are  several  things,  to  be 


The  Law  of  Substance  31 

discovered,  which  may  thus  have  the  most  funda- 
mental property,  viz.,  persistent  immutable  exist- 
ence, the  "problem"  has  resolved  itself  into  the  dis- 
covery of  what  these  things  actually  are.  It  will  not 
do  to  jump  at  some  object  and  assume  that  that  is  it. 

A  multitude  of  things  obviously  perish,  thereby 
showing  themselves  to  be  trivial  or  accidental 
arrangements,  according  to  our  hypothesis  :  A 
flame  is  extinguished  and  dies;  a  mountain  is  ulti- 
mately ground  into  sand  by  the  slow  influence  of 
denudation ;  a  planet  or  a  sun  may  lose  its  identity 
by  encounter  with  other  bodies.  All  these  are 
temporary  collocations  of  atoms;  but  it  appears 
now  that  an  atom  may  break  up  into  electric 
charges,  and  these  again  may  some  day  be  found 
capable  of  resolving  themselves  into  pristine  ether. 
If  so,  then  these  also  are  temporary,  and,  in  the  ma- 
terial universe,  it  is  the  ether  only  which  persists, 
— the  ether  with  such  states  of  motion  or  strain  as 
it  eternally  possesses, — in  which  case  the  ether  will 
have  proved  itself  the  material  substratum  and  most 
fundamental  known  entity  on  that  side. 

But  are  we  to  conclude,  therefore,  that  no- 
thing else  exists?  that  the  existence  of  one  thing 


32  Life  and  Matter 

disproves  the  existence  of  others?  The  contention 
would  be  absurd.  The  category  of  life  has  not 
been  touched  in  anything  we  have  said  so  far;  no 
relation  has  been  established  between  life  and 
energy,  or  between  life  and  ether.  The  nature  of 
life  is  unknown.  Is  life  also  a  thing  of  which  con- 
stancy can  be  asserted?  When  it  disappears  from  a 
material  environment  is  it  knocked  out  of  existence, 
or  is  it  merely  transferred  to  some  other  surround- 
ings, becoming  as  difficult  to  identify  and  recognise 
as  are  the  gases  of  a  burnt  manuscript  or  the  vapour 
of  a  vanished  cloud?  Is  it  a  temporary  trivial  col- 
location associated  with  certain  complex  groupings 
of  the  atoms  of  matter,  and  resolved  into  nothing- 
ness when  that  grouping  is  interfered  with?  or  is  it 
something  immaterial  and  itself  fundamental,  some- 
thing which  uses  these  collocations  of  matter  in 
order  to  display  itself  amid  material  surroundings, 
but  is  otherwise  essentially  independent  of  them? 
(This  idea  is  expanded  in  Chapters  VI.  to  X.) 

Professor  Haeckel  would  answer  this  question 
with  a  contemptuous  negative,  and  the  treatment 
which  he  would  thus  give  to  life  he  would  also  ex- 
tend to  mind  and  consciousness,  to  affection,  to  art, 


The  Law  of  Substance  33 

to  poetry,  to  religion,  and  all  the  other  facts  of 
experience  to  which  in  the  process  of  evolution 
humanity  has  risen :  I  say  he  would  answer  the 
question,  whether  these  had  any  real  existence 
other  than  as  a  necessary  concomitant  of  a  suffi- 
ciently complex  material  aggregate,  with  a  con- 
temptuous negative;  but  I  challenge  him  to  say  by 
what  right  he  gives  that  answer.  His  speculation 
is  that  all  these  properties  are  nascent  and  latent  in 
the  material  atoms  themselves;  that  these  have  the 
potentiality  of  life  and  choice  and  consciousness, 
which  we  perceive  in  their  developed  combinations. 
As  a  speculation  this  is  legitimate;  but  the  only 
answer  that  can  by  science  legitimately  be  given  at 
the  present  time  is  the  answer  given  by  Du  Bois- 
Reymond,  "Ignoramus ,"  (we  do  not  know). 

Scientifically  we  do  not;  and  for  a  man  of  science 
to  pretend,  or  to  assert  in  a  popular  treatise,  that 
we  do,  is  essentially  and  seriously  to  mislead.  (See 
Chapter  VII.  below.)  It  may  even  be  a  question 
whether  the  assertion  of  entire  ignorance  at  the  pre- 
sent time  is  completely  appropriate ;  whether  we 
have  not  some  positive  evidence  against  Professor 
Haeckel's  contention.  I  believe  that  we  have;  and 


34  Life  and  Matter 

though  I  may  acquiesce  in  an  assertion  of  present 
ignorance,  I  am  not  at  all  willing  to  accept  the  next 
sentence  of  Professor  du  Bois-Reymond's  answer, 
and  to  say  ' '  Ignorabi mus, "  (we  never  shall  know). 

The  matter  seems  to  me  within  the  legitimate 
lines  of  scientific  inquiry,  and  it  is  unwise  to  attempt 
prediction,  especially  negative  prediction,  or  to  at- 
tempt to  close  the  door  to  the  future  developments 
of  knowledge. 

But  I  am  content  to  say  for  the  present  that  from 
the  point  of  view  of  strict  science  it  is  not  yet  pos- 
sible to  give  any  positive  answer  to  these  questions; 
that  they  must  await  the  progress  of  discovery.  It 
becomes  a  question  of  some  interest,  therefore,  how 
it  is  possible  for  Professor  Haeckel  and  for  others 
of  his  school  to  have  arrived  at  the  idea  not  only 
that  a  scientific  answer  can  be  given,  but  that 
already  it  has  been  given,  and  that  they  know  dis- 
tinctly what  it  is. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  LIFE 

THIS  leads  me  to  the  second  main  thesis  or  cen- 
tral scientific  doctrine  of  Professor  Haeckel's 
treatise,  the  biological  one;  and  it  is  this  which  I 
shall  now  proceed  to  illustrate  by  further  quota- 
tions, viz.,  the  connection  as  he  conceives  it  be- 
tween life  and  matter. 

His  view  is  that  life  has  arisen  from  inorganic 
matter  without  antecedent  life.  The  experimental 
facts  of  biogenesis  he  discards  in  favour  of  a  hypo- 
thetical and  at  present  undiscovered  kind  of 
spontaneous  generation.  He  assumes  that  the 
chemico-physical  properties  of  carbon  confer  so 
peculiar  a  power  on  its  albuminoid  compounds  that 
they  develop  into  living  protoplasm.  He  says  that 
he  formulated  this  view  thirty-three  years  ago,  and 
that  no  better  monistic  theory  has  arisen  to  replace 

35 


36  Life  and  Matter 

it,  while  to  reject  some  form  of  spontaneous  genera- 
tion is  to  admit  a  miracle : 

"The  hypothesis  of  spontaneous  generation  and 
the  allied  carbon-theory  (viz.,  that  'carbon  . 
may  be  considered  the  chemical  basis  of  life,'  p.  2) 
are  of  great  importance  in  deciding  the  long-stand- 
ing conflict  between  the  teleological  (dualistic)  and 
the  mechanical  (monistic)  interpretation  of  phenom- 
ena" (p.  91). 

But  it  can  hardly  be  maintained  that  a  "hypo- 
thesis" is  able  to  "decide"  any  dispute. 

An  unscientific  reader  could  hardly  imagine  that 
the  apparently  detailed  account  given  in  the  next 
sentence  of  the  automatic  origin  of  life,  as  it  may 
have  arisen  on  other  planes,  and  as  it  must  have 
arisen  on  this,  is  of  the  nature  of  hypothesis: 

"First  simple  monera  are  formed  by  spontaneous 
generation,  and  from  these  arise  unicellular  pro- 
tists.  .  .  .  From  these  unicellular  protists 
arise,  in  the  further  course  of  evolution,  first  social 
cell-communities,  and  subsequently  tissue-forming 
plants  and  animals"  (p.  131). 

In  this  hypothesis  of  automatic  origin  by  the 
agency  of  matter  and  energy  alone,  he  could 
probably  find  many  biologists  to  agree  with  him 


The  Development  of  Life          3? 

speculatively ;  but;  he  goes  further  than  most  of 
them,  for  he  does  not  limit  the  automatic  or  ma- 
terial development  to  animal  and  vegetable  life 
alone:  he  throws  automatic  consciousness  in,  too: 

"The  'cellular  theory'  .  .  .  has  given  us  the 
first  true  interpretation  of  the  physical,  chemical, 
and  even  the  psychological,  processes  of  life"  (p.  i). 

"Consciousness,  thought,  and  speculation  are 
functions  of  the  ganglionic  cells  of  the  cortex  of  the 
brain"  (p.  6). 

"The  peculiar  phenomenon  of  consciousness  is 
not,  as  Du  Bois-Reymond  and  the  dualistic  school 
would  have  us  believe,  a  completely  'transcendental' 
problem :  it  is,  as  I  showed  thirty-three  years  ago, 
a  physiological  problem,  and  as  such,  must  be  re- 
duced to  the  phenomena  of  physics  and  chemistry" 
(P-  65). 

Holding  such  a  view  concerning  consciousness, 
in  the  teeth  of  the  general  philosophic  opinion  of 
to-day,  it  is  natural  to  find  that  of  orthodox  psy- 
chology and  psychologists  he  is  contemptuous: 

"Most  of  our  so-called  'psychologists'  have  little 
or  no  knowledge  of  these  indispensable  foundations 
of  anthropology,  anatomy,  histology,  ontogeny, 
and  physiology.  .  .  .  Hence  it  is  that  most  of 
the  psychological  literature  of  the  day  is  so  much 
waste-paper"  (p.  34). 


38  Life  and  Matter 

"What  we  call  the  soul  is,  in  my  opinion,  a 
natural  phenomenon ;  I  therefore  consider  psycho- 
logy to  be  a  branch  of  natural  science — a  section  of 
physiology.  Consequently,  I  must  emphatically 
assert  from  the  commencement  that  we  have  no 
methods  of  research  for  that  science  different  from 
those  for  any  of  the  others"  (p.  32). 

In  this  difficult  science  of  psychology,  he  evi- 
dently feels  himself  quite  at  home.  He  assumes 
easily  and  gratuitously  that  there  is  a  material  sub- 
stance at  the  root  of  all  mental  processes  whatever 
— called  by  Clifford  "mind-stuff"  (see,  however, 
Chapter  IV.  below), — and  he  then  proceeds  to  lay 
down  the  law  concerning  ancient  difficulties,  as 
follows : 

"We  shall  give  to  this  material  basis  of  all  psychic 
activity,  without  which  it  is  inconceivable,  the  pro- 
visional name  of  'psychoplasm.' 

"The  psychic  processes  are  subject  to  the  su- 
preme, all-ruling  law  of  substance;  not  even  in  this 
province  is  there  a  single  exception  to  this  highest 
cosmological  law. 

"The  dogma  of  'free-will,'  another  essential  ele- 
ment of  the  dualistic  psychology,  is  similarly  ir- 
reconcilable with  the  universal  law  of  substance" 

(P-  32). 

"The  freedom  of  the  will  is  not  an  object  for 
critical  scientific  inquiry  at  all,  for  it  is  a  pure 


The  Development  of  Life          39 

dogma,  based  on  an  illusion,  and  has  no  real  exist- 
ence" (p.  6). 

Nevertheless,  he  realises  that  its  apparent  exist- 
ence has  to  be  accounted  for  somehow,  and  accord- 
ingly, he  adopts  the  view  that  has  several  times 
occurred  to  thinkers,  viz.,  that  the  nucleus  of  all 
the  faculties  enjoyed  by  a  complete  organism  must 
be  attributed  in  germ  or  nucleus  to  the  cells  and 
even  to  the  atoms  out  of  which  the  organism  is 
built  up. 

His  speculation  as  to  the  formation  of  a  conscious 
organism,  and  to  the  real  meaning  of  its  apparent 
sense  of  right  and  wrong  and  its  apparent  control 
over  its  own  acts,  runs  as  follows,  the  will  being 
reduced  to  attraction  and  repulsion  between  the 
atoms: 

"Vogt's  pyknotic  theory  of  substance  is  that 
minute  parts  of  the  universal  substance,  the  centres 
of  condensation,  which  might  be  called  pyknatoms, 
correspond  in  general  to  the  ultimate  separate  atoms 
of  the  kinetic  theory;  they  differ,  however,  very 
considerably  in  that  they  are  credited  with  sensation 
and  inclination  (or  will-movement  of  the  simplest 
form),  ivitJi  souls,  in  a  certain  sense, — in  harmony 
with  the  old  theory  of  Empedocles  of  the  'loves 
and  hatreds  of  the  elements.' 


40  Life  and  Matter 

"Moreover,  these  'atoms  with  souls'  do  not  float 
in  empty  space,  but  in  the  continuous,  extremely 
attenuated,  intermediate  substance,  which  repre- 
sents the  uncondensed  portion  of  the  primitive 
matter"  (p.  77). 

1  'Attraction'  and  'repulsion'  seem  to  be  the 
sources  of  will — that  momentous  element  of  the 
soul  which  determines  the  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual" (p.  45). 

"The  positive  ponderable  matter,  the  element 
with  the  feeling  of  like  or  desire,  is  continually 
striving  to  complete  the  process  of  condensation, 
and  thus  collecting  an  enormous  amount  of  potential 
energy;  the  negative  imponderable  matter,  on  the 
other  hand,  offers  a  perpetual  and  equal  resistance 
to  the  further  increase  of  its  strain  and  of  the  feeling 
of  dislike  connected  therewith,  and  thus  gathers  the 
utmost  amount  of  actual  energy. 

"I  think  that  this  pyknotic  theory  of  substance 
will  prove  more  acceptable  to  every  biologist  who  is 
convinced  of  the  unity  of  nature  than  the  kinetic 
theory  which  prevails  in  physics  to-day"  (p.  78). 

In  other  words,  he  appeals  to  a  presumed  senti- 
ment of  biologists  against  the  knowledge  of  the 
physicist  in  his  own  sphere — a  strange  attitude  for 
a  man  of  science.  After  this,  it  is  less  surprising 
to  find  him  ignoring  the  elementary  axiom  that 
"action  and  reaction  are  equal  and  opposite,"  i.  e., 
that  internal  forces  can  have  no  motive  power  on  a 


The  Development  of  Life          41 

body  as  a  whole,  and  making  the  grotesque  asser- 
tion that  matter  is  moved,  not  by  external  forces, 
but  by  internal  likes  and  desires: 

"I  must  lay  down  the  following  theses,  which  are 
involved  in  Vogt's  pyknotic  theory,  as  indispensa- 
ble for  a  truly  monistic  view  of  substance,  and  one 
that  covers  the  whole  field  of  organic  and  inorganic 
nature : 

"i.  The  two  fundamental  forms  of  substance, 
ponderable  matter  and  ether,  are  not  dead  and  only 
moved  by  extrinsic  force,  but  they  are  endowed 
with  sensation  and  will  (though,  naturally,  of  the 
lowest  grade);  they  experience  an  inclination  for 
condensation,  a  dislike  of  strain;  they  strive  after 
the  one  and  struggle  against  the  other"  (p.  78). 

My  desire  is  to  criticise  politely,  and  hence  I 
refrain  from  characterising  this  sentence  as  a  phy- 
sicist should. 

"Every  shade  of  inclination,  from  complete  in- 
difference to  the  fiercest  passion,  is  exemplified 
in  the  chemical  relation  of  the  various  elements 
towards  each  other  "  (p.  79). 

"On  those  phenomena  we  base  our  conviction 
that  even  the  atom  is  not  without  a  rudimentary 
form  of  sensation  and  will,  or,  as  it  is  better  ex- 
pressed, of  feeling  (czsthcsis)  and  inclination  (tropesis] 
— that  is,  a  universal  'soul'  of  the  simplest  charac- 
ter" (p.  80). 


42  Life  and  Matter 

"I   gave  the  outlines  of  cellular  psychology  in 
1866  in  my  paper  on  'Cell-souls  and  Soul-cells'  ' 
(P-  63). 

Thus,  then,  in  order  to  explain  life  and  mind  and 
consciousness  by  means  of  matter,  all  that  is  done 
is  to  assume  that  matter  possesses  these  unex- 
plained attributes. 

What  the  full  meaning  of  that  may  be,  and 
whether  there  be  any  philosophic  justification  for 
any  such  idea,  is  a  matter  on  which  I  will  not  now 
express  an  opinion ;  but,  at  any  rate,  as  it  stands, 
it  is  not  science,  and  its  formulation  gives  no  sort 
of  conception  of  what  life  and  will  and  conscious- 
ness really  are. 

Even  if  it  were  true,  it  contains  nothing  whatever 
in  the  nature  of  explanation :  it  recognises  the  in- 
explicable, and  relegates  it  to  the  atoms,  where  it 
seems  to  hope  that  further  quest  may  cease.  In- 
stead of  tackling  the  difficulty  where  it  actually 
occurs;  instead  of  associating  life,  will,  and  con- 
sciousness with  the  organisms  in  which  they  are 
actually  in  experience  found,  these  ideas  are  foisted 
into  the  atoms  of  matter;  and  then  the  properties 
which  have  been  conferred  on  the  atoms  are  denied 


The  Development  of  Life          43 

in  all  essential  reality  to  the  fully  developed  organ- 
isms which  those  atoms  help  to  compose ! 

I  show  later  on  (Chapters  V.  and  X.)  that  there 
is  no  necessary  justification  for  assuming  that  a 
phenomenon  exhibited  by  an  aggregate  of  particles 
must  be  possessed  by  the  ingredients  of  which  it  is 
composed ;  on  the  contrary,  wholly  new  properties 
may  make  their  appearance  simply  by  aggregation ; 
though  I  admit  that  such  a  proposition  is  by  no 
means  obvious,  and  that  it  may  be  a  legitimate 
subject  for  controversy.  But  into  that  question 
our  author  does  not  enter ;  and  even  when  he  has 
conferred  on  the  atoms  these  astounding  properties, 
he  abstains  from  what  would  seem  a  natural  de- 
velopment :  for  his  doctrine  is  that  our  power  is 
actually  less  than  that  of  the  atoms, — that  instead 
of  utilising  the  attractions  and  repulsions,  or  "likes 
and  dislikes,"  of  our  constituent  particles,  and 
directing  them  by  the  aggregate  of  conscious  will- 
power to  some  preconceived  end,  we  ourselves,  on 
the  contrary,  are  dominated  and  controlled  by  them; 
so  that  freedom  of  the  will  is  an  illusion. 

Freedom  being  thus  disposed  of,  immortality 
presents  no  difficulty;  a  soul  is  the  operation  of  a 


44  Life  and  Matter 

group  of  cells,  and  so  the  existence  of  man  clearly 
begins  and  ends  with  that  of  his  terrestrial  body : 

"The  most  important  moment  in  the  life  of  every 
man,  as  in  that  of  all  other  complex  animals,  is  the 
moment  in  which  he  begins  his  individual  existence 
[coalescence  of  sperm  cell  and  ovum]  .  .  .  the 
existence  of  the  personality,  the  independent  indi- 
vidual, commences.  This  ontogenetic  fact  is 
supremely  important,  for  the  most  far-reaching 
conclusions  may  be  drawn  from  it.  In  the  first 
place,  we  have  a  clear  perception  that  man,  like  all 
the  other  complex  animals,  inherits  all  his  personal 
characteristics,  bodily  and  mental,  from  his  parents; 
and  further,  we  come  to  the  momentous  conclusion 
that  the  new  personality  which  arises  thus  can  lay 
no  claim  to  'immortality'  "  (p.  22). 

Others  besides  Haeckel  have  held  this  kind  of 
view  at  one  time  or  another;  but,  unlike  him,  most 
of  them  have  recanted  and  seen  the  error  of  their 
ways.  He  is,  indeed,  aware  that  several  of  his 
great  German  contemporaries  have  been  through 
this  phase  of  thought  and  come  out  on  the  other 
side,  notably  the  physiologist  Wundt,  and  he  refers 
to  them  fairly  and  instructively  thus: 

"What  seems  to  me  of  special  importance  and 
value  in  Wundt's  work  is  that  he  'extends  the  law 


The  Development  of  Life          45 

of  the  persistence  of  force  for  the  first  time  to  the 
psychic  world.' 

"Thirty  years  afterwards,  in  a  second  edition, 
Wundt  emancipated  himself  from  the  fundamental 
errors  of  the  first,  and  says  that  he  'learned  many 
years  ago  to  consider  the  work  a  sin  of  his  youth' ; 
it  'weighed  on  him  as  a  kind  of  crime,  from  which 
he  longed  to  free  himself  as  soon  as  possible.'  In 
the  first,  psychology  is  treated  as  a  physical  science, 
on  the  same  laws  as  the  whole  of  physiology,  of 
which  it  is  only  a  part ;  thirty  years  afterwards,  he 
finds  psychology  to  be  a  spiritual  science,  with 
principles  and  objects  entirely  different  from  those 
of  physical  science. 

' '  I  myself, ' '  says  Haeckel, ' '  naturally  consider  the 
'youthful  sin'  of  the  young  physiologist  Wundt  to 
be  a  correct  knowledge  of  nature,  and  energetically 
defend  it  against  the  antagonistic  view  of  the  old 
philosopher  Wundt.  This  entire  change  of  philo- 
sophical principles,  which  we  find  in  Wundt,  as  we 
found  it  in  Kant,  Virchow,  Du  Bois-Reymond,  Carl 
Ernst  Baer,  and  others,  is  very  interesting"  (p.  36). 

So  it  is:  very  interesting! 

Professor  Haeckel  is  so  imbued  with  biological 
science  that  he  loses  his  sense  of  proportion ;  and 
his  enthusiasm  for  the  work  of  Darwin  leads  him  to 
attribute  to  it  an  exaggerated  scope,  and  enables 
him  to  eliminate  the  third  of  the  Kantian  trilogy : 

"Darwin's  theory  of  the  natural  origin  of  species 


46  Life  and  Matter 

at  once  gave  us  the  solution  of  the  mystic  'problem 
of  creation,'  the  great  'question  of  all  questions' — 
the  problem  of  the  true  character  and  origin  of  man 
himself"  (p.  28). 

It  is  a  great  deal  more  than  that  patient  observer 
and  deep  thinker,  Charles  Darwin,  ever  claimed,  nor 
have  his  wiser  disciples  claimed  it  for  him.  It  is 
familiar  that  he  explained  how  variations  once 
arisen  would  be  clinched,  if  favourable  in  the 
struggle,  by  the  action  of  heredity  and  survival; 
but  the  source  or  origin  of  the  variations  themselves 
he  did  not  explain. 

Do  they  arise  by  guidance  or  by  chance?  Is 
natural  selection  akin  to  the  verified  and  practical 
processes  of  artificial  selection?  or  is  it  wholly  alien 
to  them  and  influenced  by  chance  alone?  The  lat- 
ter view  can  hardly  be  considered  a  complete  ex- 
planation, though  it  is  verbally  the  one  adopted  by 
Professor  Haeckel,  and  it  is  of  interest  to  see  what 
he  means  by  chance : 

"Since  impartial  study  of  the  evolution  of  the 
world  teaches  us  that  there  is  no  definite  aim  and 
no  special  purpose  to  be  traced  in  it,  there  seems  to 
be  no  alternative  but  to  leave  everything  to  'blind 
chance.' 


The  Development  of  Life          47 

"One  group  of  philosophers  affirms,  in  accordance 
with  its  teleological  conception,  that  the  whole 
cosmos  is  an  orderly  system,  in  which  every 
phenomenon  has  its  aim  and  purpose;  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  chance.  The  other  group,  holding  a 
mechanical  theory,  expresses  itself  thus :  The  de- 
velopment of  the  universe  is  a  monistic  mechanical 
process,  in  which  we  discover  no  aim  or  purpose 
whatever ;  what  we  call  design  in  the  organic  world 
is  a  special  result  of 'biological  agencies;  neither  in 
the  evolution  of  the  heavenly  bodies  nor  in  that  of 
the  crust  of  our  earth  do  we  find  any  trace  of  a  con- 
trolling purpose — all  is  the  result  of  chance.  Each 
party  is  right — according  to  its  definition  of  chance. 
The  general  law  of  causality,  taken  in  conjunction 
with  the  law  of  substance,  teaches  us  that  every 
phenomenon  has  a  mechanical  cause;  in  this  sense, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  chance.  Yet  it  is  not  only 
lawful,  but  necessary,  to  retain  the  term  for  the 
purpose  of  expressing  the  simultaneous  occurrence 
of  two  phenomena,  which  are  not  causally  related  to 
each  other,  but  of  which  each  has  its  own  mechani- 
cal cause,  independent  of  that  of  the  other. 

"Everybody  knows  that  chance,  in  this  monistic 
sense,  plays  an  important  part  in  the  life  of  man  and 
in  the  universe  at  large.  That,  however,  does  not 
prevent  us  from  recognising  in  each  'chance'  event, 
as  we  do  in  the  evolution  of  the  entire  cosmos,  the 
universal  sovereignty  of  nature's  supreme  law,  the 
law  of  substance  ' '  (p.  97). 


48  Life  and  Matter 

Illegitimate  Negations 

With  regard  to  the  possibility  of  Revelation,  or 
information  derived  from  superhuman  sources, 
naturally  he  ridicules  the  idea;  but,  in  connection 
with  the  mode  of  origin  and  development  of  life 
on  this  planet,  he  makes  the  following  sensible  and 
noteworthy  admission : 

"It  is  very  probable  that  these  processes  have 
gone  on  likewise  on  other  planets,  and  that  other 
planets  have  produced  other  types  of  the  higher 
plants  and  animals,  which  are  unknown  on  our  earth ; 
perhaps  from  some  higher  animal  stem,  which  is 
superior  to  the  vertebrate  in  formation,  higher 
beings  have  arisen  who  far  transcend  us  earthly 
men  in  intelligence." 

Exactly;  it  is  quite  probable.  It  is,  in  fact,  im- 
probable that  man  is  the  highest  type  of  existence. 
But  if  Professor  Haeckel  is  ready  to  grant  that 
probability  or  even  possibility,  why  does  he  so 
strenuously  exclude  the  idea  of  revelation,  i.  e.,  the 
acquiring  of  imparted  information  from  higher 
sources?  Savages  can  certainly  have  "revelation" 
from  civilised  men.  Why,  then,  should  it  be  in- 
conceivable that  human  beings  should  receive  in- 
formation from  beings  in  the  universe  higher  than 


The  Development  of  Life          49 

themselves?  It  may  or  may  not  be  the  case  that 
they  do;  but  there  is  no  scientific  ground  for  dog- 
matism on  the  subject,  nor  any  reason  for  asserting 
the  inconceivability  of  such  a  thing. 

Professor  Haeckel  would  no  doubt  reply  to  some 
of  the  above  criticism  that  he  is  not  only  a  man  of 
science,  but  also  a  philosopher;  that  he  is  looking 
ahead,  beyond  ascertained  fact,  and  that  it  is  his 
philosophic  views  which  are  in  question  rather  than 
his  scientific  statements.  To  some  extent,  it  is 
both,  as  has  been  seen ;  but  even  if  the  above  be 
widely  known — if  it  be  generally  understood  that 
the  most  controversial  portions  of  his  work  are 
mainly  speculative  and  hypothetical,  it  can  be  left 
to  its  proper  purpose  of  doing  good  rather  than 
harm.  It  can  only  do  harm  by  misleading:  it  can 
do  considerable  good  by  criticising  and  stimulating 
and  informing;  and  it  is  an  interesting  fact  that  a 
man  so  well  acquainted  with  biology  as  Professor 
Haeckel  is  should  have  been  so  strongly  impressed 
with  the  truth  of  some  aspect  of  the  philosophic 
system  known  as  Monism.  Many  men  of  science 
have  likewise  been  impressed  with  the  probability, 
or  possibility,  of  some  such  ultimate  unification. 


50  Life  and  Matter 

The  problem  to  be  solved — and  an  Old-World 
problem  indeed  it  is — is  the  range,  and  especially 
the  nature,  of  the  connection  between  mind  and 
matter;  or,  let  us  say,  between  the  material  uni- 
verse on  the  one  hand,  and  the  vital,  the  mental, 
the  conscious,  and  spiritual  universe  or  universes, 
on  the  other. 

It  would  be  extremely  surprising  if  any  attempt 
yet  made  had  already  been  thoroughly  successful, 
though  the  attack  on  the  idealistic  side  appears  to 
many  of  us  physicists  to  be  by  far  the  most  hopeful 
line  of  advance.  An  excessively  wide  knowledge 
of  existence  would  seem  to  be  demanded  for  the 
success  of  any  such  most  ambitious  attempt;  but, 
though  none  of  us  may  hope  to  achieve  it,  many 
may  strive  to  make  some  contribution  towards  the 
great  end ;  and  those  who  think  they  have  such  a 
contribution  to  make,  or  such  a  revelation  entrusted 
to  them,  are  bound  to  express  it  to  the  best  of  their 
ability,  and  leave  it  to  their  contemporaries  and 
successors  to  assimilate  such  portions  of  it  as  are 
true,  and  to  develop  it  further.  From  this  point 
of  view,  Professor  Haeckel  is  no  doubt  amply  justi- 
fied in  his  writings;  but,  unfortunately,  it  appears 


The  Development  of  Life          51 

to  me  that  although  he  has  been  borne  forward  on 
the  advancing  wave  of  monistic  philosophy,  he  has, 
in  its  specification,  attempted  such  precision  of 
materialistic  detail,  and  subjected  it  to  so  narrow 
and  limited  a  view  of  the  totality  of  experience, 
that  the  progress  of  thought  has  left  him,  as  well  as 
his  great  English  exemplar,  Herbert  Spencer,  some- 
what high  and  dry,  belated  and  stranded  by  the 
tide  of  opinion  which  has  now  begun  to  flow  in 
another  direction.  He  is,  as  it  were,  a  surviving 
voice  from  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century; 
he  represents,  in  clear  and  eloquent  fashion,  opin- 
ions which  then  were  prevalent  among  many  leaders 
of  thought  —  opinions  which  they  themselves  in 
many  cases,  and  their  successors  still  more,  lived  to 
outgrow ;  so  that  by  this  time  Professor  Haeckel's 
voice  is  as  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness, 
not  as  the  pioneer  or  vanguard  of  an  advancing 
army,  but  as  the  despairing  shout  of  a  standard- 
bearer,  still  bold  and  unflinching,  but  abandoned 
by  the  retreating  ranks  of  his  comrades  as  they 
march  to  new  orders  in  a  fresh  and  more  idealistic 
direction. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MEMORANDA  FOR  WOULD-BE  MATERIALISTS 

THE  objection  which  it  has  been  found  neces- 
sary to  express  concerning  Materialism  as  a 
complete  system  is  based  not  on  its  assertions,  but 
on  its  negations.  In  so  far  as  it  makes  positive 
assertions,  embodying  the  results  of  scientific  dis- 
covery and  even  of  scientific  speculation  based 
thereupon,  there  is  no  fault  to  find  with  it;  but 
when,  on  the  strength  of  that,  it  sets  up  to  be  a 
philosophy  of  the  universe— all-inclusive,  therefore, 
and  shutting  out  a  number  of  truths  otherwise 
perceived,  or  which  appeal  to  other  faculties,  or 
which  are  equally  true  and  are  not  really  contradic- 
tory of  legitimately  materialistic  statements — then 
it  is  that  its  insufficiency  and  narrowness  have  to  be 
displayed. 

It  will  probably  be  instructive,  and  it  may  be 
sufficient,  if  I  show  that  two  great  leaders  in  scien- 
tific thought  (one  the  greatest  of  all  men  of  science 

52 


Would-be  Materialists  53 

who  have  yet  lived),  though  well  aware  of  much 
that  could  be  said  positively  on  the  materialistic 
side,  and  very  willing  to  admit  or  even  to  extend 
the  province  of  science  or  exact  knowledge  to  the 
uttermost,  yet  were  very  far  from  being  philosophic 
Materialists  or  from  imagining  that  other  modes  of 
regarding  the  universe  were  thereby  excluded. 

Great  leaders  of  thought,  in  fact,  are  not  accus- 
tomed to  take  a  narrow  view  of  existence  or  to  sup- 
pose that  one  mode  of  regarding  it,  or  one  set  of 
formulae  expressing  it,  can  possibly  be  sufficient 
and  complete.  Even  a  sheet  of  paper  has  two 
sides;  a  terrestrial  globe  presents  different  aspects 
from  different  points  of  view;  a  crystal  has  a  vari- 
ety of  facets;  and  the  totality  of  existence  is  not 
likely  to  be  more  simple  than  any  of  these — is  not 
likely  to  be  readily  expressible  in  any  form  of  words, 
or  to  be  thoroughly  conceivable  by  any  human  mind. 

It  may  be  well  to  remember  that  Sir  Isaac  New- 
ton was  a  Theist  of  the  most  pronounced  and 
thorough  conviction,  although  he  had  a  great  deal 
to  do  with  the  reduction  of  the  major  Cosmos  to 
mechanics,  i.  c.,  with  its  explanation  by  the  elabo- 
rated machinery  of  simple  forces;  and  he  conceived 


54  Life  and  Matter 

it  possible  that,  in  the  progress  of  science,  this  pro- 
cess of  reduction  to  mechanics  would  continue  till 
it  embraced  nearly  all  phenomena.  (See  extract 
below.)  That,  indeed,  has  been  the  effort  of  science 
ever  since,  and  therein  lies  the  legitimate  basis  for 
materialistic  statements,  though  not  for  a  material- 
istic philosophy. 

The  following  sound  remarks  concerning  Newton 
are  taken  from  Huxley's  Hume,  p.  246: 

"Newton  demonstrated  all  the  host  of  heaven  to 
be  but  the  elements  of  a  vast  mechanism,  regulated 
by  the  same  laws  as  those  which  express  the  falling 
of  a  stone  to  the  ground.  There  is  a  passage  in  the 
preface  to  the  first  edition  of  the  Principia,  which 
shows  that  Newton  was  penetrated,  as  completely 
as  Descartes,  with  the  belief  that  all  the  phenomena 
of  nature  are  expressible  in  terms  of  matter  and 
motion : 

"  '  WOULD  THAT  THE  REST  OF  THE  PHENOMENA 
OF  NATURE  COULD  BE  DEDUCED  BY  A  LIKE  KIND 
OF  REASONING  FROM  MECHANICAL  PRINCIPLES. 
FOR  MANY  CIRCUMSTANCES  LEAD  ME  TO  SUSPECT 
THAT  ALL  THESE  PHENOMENA  MAY  DEPEND  UPON 
CERTAIN  FORCES,  IN  VIRTUE  OF  WHICH  THE  PAR- 
TICLES OF  BODIES,  BY  CAUSES  NOT  YET  KNOWN, 
ARE  EITHER  MUTUALLY  IMPELLED  AGAINST  ONE 
ANOTHER,  AND  COHERE  INTO  REGULAR  FIGURES, 
OR  REPEL  AND  RECEDE  FROM  ONE  ANOTHER; 


Would-be  Materialists  55 

WHICH  FORCES  BEING  UNKNOWN,  PHILOSOPHERS 
HAVE  AS  YET  EXPLORED  NATURE  IN  VAIN.  BUT  I 
HOPE  THAT,  EITHER  BY  THIS  METHOD  OF  PHILOSO- 
PHISING, OR  BY  SOME  OTHER  AND  BETTER,  THE 
PRINCIPLES  HERE  LAID  DOWN  MAY  THROW  SOME 
LIGHT  UPON  THE  MATTER.'" 

Here  is  a  full-blown  anticipation  of  an  intelligible 
exposition  of  the  universe  in  terms  of  matter  and 
force :  the  substantial  basis  of  what  smaller  men 
call  Materialism  and  develop  into  what  they  con- 
sider to  be  a  materialistic  philosophy.  But  there  is 
no  necessity  for  anything  of  the  kind;  a  systematic 
expression  of  facts  in  terms  of  one  of  their  aspects 
does  not  exclude  expression  in  terms  of  other  and 
totally  different  aspects  also.  Denial  of  all  sides 
but  one  is  a  poor  kind  of  unification.  Denial  of 
this  sort  is  the  weakness  and  delusion  of  the  people 
who  call  themselves  "Christian  Scientists":  they 
have  hold  of  one  side  of  truth — and  that  should  be 
granted  them, — but  they  hold  it  in  so  narrow  and 
insecure  a  fashion  that,  in  self-defence,  they  think 
it  safest  strenuously  to  deny  the  existence  of  all 
other  sides.  In  this  futile  enterprise,  they  are  imi- 
tating the  attitude  of  the  philosophic  Materialists, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  controversy. 


56  Life  and  Matter 

And  then,  again,  Professor  Huxley  himself,  who 
is  commonly  spoken  of  by  half-informed  people  as 
if  he  were  a  philosophic  Materialist,  was  really 
nothing  of  the  kind ;  for  although,  like  Newton, 
fully  imbued  with  the  mechanical  doctrine,  and,  of 
course,  far  better  informed  concerning  the  biolog- 
ical departments  of  nature  and  the  discoveries 
which  in  the  last  century  have  been  made,  and 
though  he  rightly  regarded  it  as  his  mission  to  make 
the  scientific  point  of  view  clear  to  his  benighted 
contemporaries,  and  was  full  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
facts  on  which  Materialists  take  their  stand,  he  saw 
clearly  that  these  alone  were  insufficient  for  a  phi- 
losophy. The  following  extracts  from  the  Hume 
volume  will  show,  first,  that  he  entirely  repudiated 
Materialism  as  a  satisfactory  or  complete  scheme  of 
things;  and,  secondly,  that  he  profoundly  disagreed 
with  the  position  which  now  appears  to  be  occupied 
by  Professor  Haeckel.  Especially  is  he  severe  on 
gratuitous  denials  applied  to  provinces  beyond  our 
scope,  saying  that 

"while  it  is  the  summit  of  human  wisdom  to  learn 
the  limit  of  our  faculties,  it  may  be  wise  to  recol- 
lect that  we  have  no  more  right  to  make  denials, 


Would-be  Materialists  57 

than  to  put  forth  affirmatives,  about  what  lies 
beyond  that  limit.  Whether  either  mind  or  matter 
has  a  'substance'  or  not  is  a  problem  which  we  are 
incompetent  to  discuss;  and  it  is  just  as  likely  that 
the  common  notions  upon  the  subject  should  be 
correct  as  any  others.  .  .  .  'The  same  prin- 
ciples which,  at  first  view,  lead  to  scepticism,  pur- 
sued to  a  certain  point  bring  men  back  to  common 
sense'  "  (p.  282). 

And  on  p.  286  he  speaks  concerning  "substance" 
— that  substance  which  constitutes  the  foundation 
of  Haeckel's  philosophy — almost  as  if  he  were  pur- 
posely confuting  that  rather  fly-blown  production : 

"Thus,  if  any  man  think  he  has  reason  to  believe 
that  the  'substance  '  of  matter,  to  the  existence  of 
which  no  limit  can  be  set  either  in  time  or  space,  is 
the  infinite  and  eternal  substratum  of  all  actual  and 
possible  existences,  which  is  the  doctrine  of  philo- 
sophical materialism,  as  I  understand  it,  I  have  no 
objection  to  his  holding  that  doctrine;  and  I  fail  to 
comprehend  how  it  can  have  the  slightest  influence 
upon  any  ethical  or  religious  views  he  may  please 
to  hold.  .  .  . 

"Moreover,  the  ultimate  forms  of  existence  which 
we  distinguish  in  our  little  speck  of  the  universe 
are,  possibly,  only  two  out  of  infinite  varieties  of 
existence,  not  only  analogous  to  matter  and  analog- 
ous to  mind,  but  of  kinds  which  we  are  not  com- 
petent so  much  as  to  conceive — in  the  midst  of 


58  Life  and  Matter 

which,  indeed,  we  might  be  set  down,  with  no  more 
notion  of  what  was  about  us  than  the  worm  in  a 
flower-pot,  on  a  London  balcony,  has  of  the  life  of 
the  great  city. 

"That  which  I  do  very  strongly  object  to  is  the 
habit,  which  a  great  many  non-philosophical  ma- 
terialists unfortunately  fall  into,  of  forgetting  all 
these  very  obvious  considerations.  They  talk  as  if 
the  proof  that  the  'substance  of  matter'  was  the 
'substance'  of  all  things  cleared  up  all  the  mysteries 
of  existence.  In  point  of  fact,  it  leaves  them 
exactly  where  they  were.  .  .  .  Your  religious 
and  ethical  difficulties  are  just  as  great  as  mine. 
The  speculative  game  is  drawn — let  us  get  to  prac- 
tical work"  (p.  286). 

And  again  on  pp.  251  and  279: 

"It  is  worth  any  amount  of  trouble  to     ... 

know    by    one's    own    knowledge    the    great   truth 

that  the  honest  and  rigorous  following  up 

of  the  argument  which  leads  us  to   'materialism' 

inevitably  carries  us  beyond  it"  (p.  251). 

"To  sum  up.  If  the  materialist  affirms  that  the 
universe  and  all  its  phenomena  are  resolvable  into 
matter  and  motion,  Berkeley  replies,  True;  but 
what  you  call  matter  and  motion  are  known  to  us 
only  as  forms  of  consciousness;  their  being  is  to  be 
conceived  or  known ;  and  the  existence  of  a  state 
of  consciousness,  apart  from  a  thinking  mind,  is  a 
contradiction  in  terms. 

"I   conceive  that  this   reasoning  is  irrefragable. 


Would-be  Materialists  59 

And,  therefore,  if  I  were  obliged  to  choose  between 
absolute  materialism  and  absolute  idealism,  I  should 
feel  compelled  to  accept  the  latter  alternative"  (p. 
279). 

Let  the  jubilant  but  uninstructed  and  compara- 
tively ignorant  amateur  Materialist  therefore  be- 
ware, and  bethink  himself  twice  or  even  thrice  before 
he  conceives  that  he  understands  the  universe  and 
is  competent  to  pour  scorn  upon  the  intuitions 
and  perceptions  of  great  men  in  what  may  be  to 
him  alien  regions  of  thought  and  experience. 

Let  him  explain,  if  he  can,  what  he  means  by  his 
own  identity,  or  the  identity  of  any  thinking  or 
living  being,  which  at  different  times  consists  of  a 
totally  different  set  of  material  particles.  Some- 
thing there  clearly  is  which  confers  personal  iden- 
tity and  constitutes  an  individual:  it  is  a  property 
characteristic  of  every  form  of  life,  even  the  hum- 
blest;  but  it  is  not  yet  explained  or  understood, 
and  it  is  no  answer  to  assert  gratuitously  that  there 
is  some  fundamental  "substance"  or  material  basis 
on  which  that  identity  depends,  any  more  than  it 
is  an  explanation  to  say  that  it  depends  upon  a 
"soul."  These  are  all  forms  of  words.  As  Hume 


60  Life  and  Matter 

says,  quoted  by  Huxley  with  approval  in  the  work 
already  cited : 

"It  is  impossible  to  attach  any  definite  meaning 
to  the  word  'substance,'  when  employed  for  the 
hypothetical  substratum  of  soul  and  matter.  .  .  . 
If  it  be  said  that  our  personal  identity  requires  the 
assumption  of  a  substance  which  remains  the  same 
while  the  accidents  of  perception  shift  and  change, 
the  question  arises,  What  is  meant  by  personal  iden- 
tity? ...  A  plant  or  an  animal,  in  the  course 
of  its  existence,  from  the  condition  of  an  egg  or 
seed  to  the  end  of  life,  remains  the  same  neither  in 
form,  nor  in  structure,  nor  in  the  matter  of  which 
it  is  composed :  every  attribute  it  possesses  is  con- 
stantly changing,  and  yet  we  say  that  it  is  always 
one  and  the  same  individual"  (p.  194). 

And  in  his  own  preface  to  the  Hume  'volume, 
Huxley  expresses  himself  forcibly  thus, — equally 
antagonistic,  as  was  his  wont,  both  to  ostensible 
friend  and  ostensible  foe,  as  soon  as  they  got  off 
what  he  considered  the  straight  path : 

"That  which  it  may  be  well  for  us  not  to  forget 
is,  that  the  first-recorded  judicial  murder  of  a  scien- 
tific thinker  [Socrates]  was  compassed  and  effected, 
not  by  a  despot,  nor  by  priests,  but  was  brought 
about  by  eloquent  demagogues.  .  .  .  Clear 
knowledge  of  what  one  does  not  know  just  as  im- 
portant as  knowing  what  one  does  know.  .  .  . 


Would-be  Materialists  61 

"The  development  of  exact  natural  knowledge  in 
all  its  vast  range,  from  physics  to  history  and  critic- 
ism, is  the  consequence  of  the  working  out,  in  this 
province,  of  the  resolution  to  'take  nothing  for  truth 
without  clear  knowledge  that  it  is  such' ;  to  con- 
sider all  beliefs  open  to  criticism ;  to  regard  the 
value  of  authority  as  neither  greater  nor  less  than 
as  much  as  it  can  prove  itself  to  be  worth.  The 
modern  spirit  is  not  the  spirit  'which  always  denies,' 
delighting  only  in  destruction;  still  less  is  it  that 
which  builds  castles  in  the  air  rather  than  not  con- 
struct; it  is  that  spirit  which  works  and  will  work, 
'without  haste  and  without  rest,'  gathering  harvest 
after  harvest  of  truth  into  its  barns,  and  devouring 
error  with  unquenchable  fire"  (p.  viii.). 

The  harvesting  of  truth  is  a  safe  enough  enter- 
prise, but  the  devouring  of  error  is  a  more  dan- 
gerous pastime,  since  flames  are  liable  to  spread 
beyond  our  control;  and  though,  in  a  world 
overgrown  with  weeds  and  refuse,  the  cleansing 
influence  of  fire  is  a  necessity,  it  would  be  cruel  to 
apply  the  same  agency  again  at  a  later  stage,  when 
a  fresh  young  crop  is  springing  up  in  the  cleared 
ground. 


CHAPTER  V 

RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY 

THE  aphorism  sometimes  encountered,  that 
"whatever  properties  appertain  to  a  whole 
must  essentially  belong  to  the  parts  of  which  it  is 
composed,"  is  a  fallacy.  A  property  can  be  pos- 
sessed by  an  aggregation  of  atoms  which  no  atom 
possesses  in  the  slightest  degree.  Those  who  think 
otherwise  are  unacquainted  with  mathematical  laws 
other  than  simple  proportion  or  some  continuous 
or  additive  functions;  they  are  not  aware  of  dis- 
continuities; they  are  not  experienced  in  critical 
values,  above  which  certain  conditions  obtain, 
while  below  them  there  is  suddenly  nothing.  To 
refute  them,  an  instance  must  suffice: 

A  meteoric  stone  may  seem  to  differ  from  a 
planet  only  in  size,  but  the  difference  in  size  in- 
volves also  many  other  differences,  notably  the  fact 
that  the  larger  body  can  attract  and  hold  to  itself 
an  atmosphere  —  a  circumstance  of  the  utmost 

03 


Religion  and  Philosophy  63 

importance  to  the  existence  of  life  on  its  surface. 
In  order,  however,  that  a  planet  may  by  gravitative 
attraction  control  the  roving  atoms  of  gas,  and 
confine  their  excursions  to  within  a  certain  range 
of  itself,  it  must  have  a  very  considerable  mass. 

The  earth  is  big  enough  to  do  it ;  the  moon  is 
not.  By  simply  piling  atoms  or  stones  together 
into  a  mighty  mass  there  comes  a  critical  point 
at  which  an  atmosphere  becomes  possible;  and  di- 
rectly an  atmosphere  exists,  all  manner  of  phenom- 
ena may  spring  into  existence,  which  without  it 
were  quite  impossible. 

So,  also,  it  may  be  said  that  a  sun  differs  from  a 
dark  planet  only  in  size;  for  it  is  just  the  fact  of 
great  size  which  enables  its  gravitative-shrinkage 
and  earthquake-subsidence  to  generate  an  immense 
quantity  of  heat  and  to  maintain  the  mass  for  aeons 
at  an  excessively  high  temperature,  thereby  fitting 
it  to  become  the  centre  of  light  and  life  to  a  num- 
ber of  worlds.  The  blaze  of  the  sun  is  a  property 
which  is  the  outcome  of  its  great  mass.  A  small 
permanent  sun  is  an  impossibility. 

Wherefore,  properties  can  be  possessed  by  an 
aggregate  or  assemblage  of  particles  which  in  the 


64  Life  and  Matter 

particles  themselves  did  not  in  the  slightest  degree 
exist. 

If,  however,  we  reverse  the  aphorism  and  say 
that  whatever  is  in  a  part  must  be  in  the  whole,  we 
are  on  much  safer  ground.  I  do  not  say  that  it 
cannot  be  pressed  into  illegitimate  extremes,  but  in 
one,  and  that  the  simplest,  sense  it  is  little  better 
than  a  platitude.  The  fact  that  an  apple  has  pips 
legitimises  the  assertion  that  an  apple-tree  has  pips, 
and  that  the  peculiar  property  of  pips  represents  a 
faculty  enjoyed  by  the  vegetable  kingdom  as  a 
whole;  but  it  would  be  a  childish  misunderstanding 
to  expect  to  find  actual  pips  in  the  trunk  of  a  tree 
or  in  all  vegetables. 

There  is  a  tendency  to  call  the  argument  or  state- 
ment that,  whatever  faculty  man  possesses,  the 
Deity  must  have  also,  by  the  term  "Anthropomor- 
phism" ;  but  it  seems  to  me  a  misnomer,  and  to  con- 
vey quite  wrong  ideas.  The  argument  represented 
by  "He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  he  not  see?  he 
that  planted  the  ear,  shall  he  not  hear?  "  need  not 
assume  for  a  moment  that  God  has  sense  organs 
akin  to  those  of  man,  or  that  He  appreciates  ether- 
eal and  aerial  vibrations  in  the  same  sort  of  way.  It 


Religion  and  Philosophy  65 

is  not  an  assertion  of  similarity  between  God  and 
man,  but  merely  a  realisation  that  what  belongs  to 
a  part  must  be  contained  in  the  whole.  It  is  not  even 
necessarily  pantheistic:  it  would  hold  equally  well 
on  a  theistic  interpretation.  Regarded  pantheis- 
tically,  it  is  obvious  and  requires  no  stating,  re- 
garded theistically,  it  is  -a  perception  that  faculties 
and  powers  which  have  come  into  existence,  and 
are  actually  at  work  in  the  universe,  cannot  have 
arisen  without  the  knowledge  and  sympathy  and 
full  understanding  of  the  Sustainer  and  Compre- 
hender  of  it  all.  Nor  can  functions  be  expected  in  the 
creature  which  transcend  the  power  of  the  Creator. 

All  our  faculties,  sensations,  and  emotions  must 
therefore  be  understood,  and  in  a  sense  possessed, 
in  some  transcendental  and  to  us  unimaginable 
form,  by  the  Deity. 

I  know  that  it  is  possible  to  deny  His  existence, 
just  as  it  is  possible  to  deny  the  existence  of  an 
external  world  or  to  maintain  that  reality  is  limited 
to  our  sensations.  If  the  Deity  has  a  sense  of 
humour,  as  undoubtedly  He  has,  He  must  be 
amused  at  the  remarkable  philosophising  faculty 
recently  developed  by  the  creature,  which  on  this 


66  Life  and  Matter 

planet  has  become  most  vigorously  self-conscious 
and  is  in  the  early  stages  of  progress  towards  higher 
things — a  philosophising  faculty  so  acute  as  to  lead 
him  to  mistrust  and  throw  away  information  con- 
veyed to  him  by  the  very  instruments  which  have 
enabled  him  to  become  what  he  is ;  so  that,  having 
become  keenly  alive  to  the  truth  that  all  we  are  di- 
rectly aware  of  is  the  fruit  of  our  own  sensations  and 
consciousness,  he  proceeds  to  the  grotesque  suppo- 
sition that  these  sensations  and  consciousness  may  be 
all  that  really  exists,  and  that  the  information  which 
for  ages  our  senses  have  conveyed  to  us  concerning 
external  things  may  be  illusory,  not  only  in  form 
and  detail  and  appearance,  but  in  substantial  fact. 
He  must  be  pleased,  also,  with  the  enterprise  of 
those  eager  philosophers  who  are  so  strenuously 
impressed  with  the  truth  of  some  ultimate  monistic 
unification,  as  to  be  unwilling  to  concede  the  multi- 
fariousness  of  existence;  who  decline  to  speak  of 
mind  and  matter,  or  of  body  and  spirit,  or  of  God 
and  the  world,  as  in  any  sense  separate  entities; 
who  stigmatise  as  dualistic  anything  which  does  not 
manifestly  and  consciously  strain  after  an  ultimate 
monistic  view;  and  who  then,  as  a  climax,  on  the 


Religion  and  Philosophy  67 

strength  of  a  few  years'  superficial  experience  on  a 
planet,  by  the  aid  of  the  sense  organs  which  they 
themselves  perceive  to  be  illusory  whenever  the 
actual  reality  of  things  is  in  contemplation,  proceed 
to  develop  the  theory  that  the  whole  has  come  into 
being  without  direct  intelligence  and  apart  from 
spiritual  guidance,  that  it  is  managed  so  well  (or  so 
ill)  that  it  is  really  not  managed  at  all,  that  no  Deity 
exists,  and  that  it  is  absurd  to  postulate  the  exist- 
ence of  a  comprehensive  and  all-inclusive  guiding 
Mind. 

To  be  able  to  perceive  comprehensively  and  state 
fully  not  only  what  is,  but  also  what  is  not,  is  a 
wonderful  achievement.  I  do  not  think  that  such 
a  power  has  yet  been  acquired  by  any  of  the  sons 
of  men ;  nor  will  the  semi-educated  readers  of  this 
country  be  wise  if  they  pin  their  faith  and  build 
their  hopes  on  the  utterances  of  any  man,  however 
eminent,  who  makes  this  superhuman  claim. 

Now,  in  all  charity,  it  must  be  admitted  that  in 
some  passages  Professor  Haeckel  puts  himself  under 
the  ban  implied  by  the  above  paragraph,  inasmuch 
as  he  conducts  a  sort  of  free  and  easy  attack  on 
religion,  especially  on  what  he  conceives  to  be  the 


68  Life  and  Matter 

fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity.  But,  after 
all,  it  can  be  perceived  that  his  attack,  so  far  as  it 
is  really  an  attack  on  religion,  is  evidently  inspired 
by  his  mistrust  and  dislike,  and  to  some  extent 
fear,  of  Ecclesiasticism,  especially  of  the  Ultra- 
montane movement  in  Germany,  against  which  he 
says  Prince  Bismarck  began  a  struggle  in  1872.  It  is 
this  kind  of  semi-political  religion  that  he  is  really 
attacking,  more  than  the  pure  essence  of  Christian- 
ity itself.  He  regards  it  as  a  bigoted  system  hostile 
to  knowledge — which,  if  true,  would  amply  justify 
an  attack — and  he  says  on  page  1 18  : 

"The  great  struggle  between  modern  science  and 
orthodox  Christianity  has  become  more  threaten- 
ing; it  has  grown  more  dangerous  for  science  in 
proportion  as  Christianity  has  found  support  in  an 
increasing  mental  and  political  reaction." 

This  may  seem  an  exaggerated  fear;  but  the 
following  extract  from  a  pastoral  address  by  the 
Bishop  of  Newport,  which  accidentally  I  saw  re- 
ported in  the  Tablet,  shows  that  the  danger  is  not 
wholly  imaginary,  if  unwise  opinions  are  pressed  to 
their  logical  practical  issue: 

"If  the  formulas  of   modern   science  contradict 


Religion  and  Philosophy  69 

the  science  of  Catholic  dogma,  it  is  the  former  that 
must  be  altered,  not  the  latter."  l 

1  In  case  it  is  unfair  to  wrench  a  sentence  like  this  from  its  con- 
text, I  quote  the  larger  portion  of  that  instructive  report  in  this  note: 

Extract  from  "  The  Tablet"  August  27,  790^ — An  Address  by  the 
Bishop  of  Newport, 

"If  the  Abbe  Loisy  has  followers  within  the  Church,  as  we  are 
informed  he  has,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  danger  for  Catholics 
is  by  no  means  imaginary.  For  Loisy  teaches  that  the  dogmatic 
definitions  of  the  Church  (on  the  Incarnation),  although  the  best 
that  could  be  given  at  the  time  and  under  the  circumstances,  are 
only  a  most  inadequate  expression  of  the  real  truth,  which  they 
represent  merely  relatively  and  imperfectly.  These  definitions,  he 
says,  should  now  be  stated  afresh,  because  the  traditional  formula  no 
longer  corresponds  to  the  way  in  which  the  mystery  is  regarded  by 
contemporary  thought.  In  his  view,  our  present  knowledge  of  the 
universe  should  suggest  to  the  Church  a  new  examination  of  the 
dogma  of  Creation  ;  our  knowledge  of  history  should  make  her  re- 
vise her  ideas  of  revelation  ;  and  our  progress  in  psychology  and 
moral  philosophy  should  suggest  to  her  to  re-state  her  theology  of 
the  Incarnation.  Every  one  can  see  that  there  is  a  grain  of  truth  in 
this  kind  of  talk.  But  it  is,  on  the  whole,  a  pestilent  and  dangerous 
heresy.  If  the  formulas  of  modern  science  contradict  the  science  of 
Catholic  dogma,  it  is  the  former  that  must  be  altered,  not  the  latter. 
If  modern  metaphysics  are  incompatible  with  the  metaphysical  terms 
and  expressions  adopted  by  councils  and  explained  by  the  Catholic 
schools,  then  modern  metaphysics  must  be  rejected  as  erroneous. 
The  Church  does  not  change  her  Christian  philosophy  to  suit  the 
world's  speculations ;  she  teaches  the  world,  by  her  theological  defi- 
nitions, what  true  and  sound  philosophy  is.  Whilst  every  effort 
should  be  made  by  Catholic  apologists  to  smooth  the  way  for  a  gen- 
uine understanding  of  the  Church's  dogmatic  terminology,  two  things 
must  never  be  lost  sight  of:  first,  that  this  terminology  expresses  real 
objective  truth  (however  inadequate  the  expression  may  be  to  the 
full  meaning,  as  God  sees  it,  of  any  given  mystery)  ;  and,  secondly, 
that  such  truth  is  expressed  in  terms  of  sound  philosophy  which  will 
not  be  given  up,  and  which  may  be  called  the  Christian  philosophy." 


70  Life  and  Matter 

Professor  Haeckel  continues  his  criticism  of  Offi- 
cial Christianity  in  the  following  vein : 

"The  so-called  'Peace  between  Church  and  State' 
is  never  more  than  a  suspension  of  hostilities.  The 
modern  Papacy,  true  to  the  despotic  principles  it 
has  followed  for  the  last  sixteen  hundred  years,  is  de- 
termined to  wield  sole  dominion  over  the  credulous 
souls  of  men ;  it  must  demand  the  absolute  submis- 
sion of  the  cultured  State,  which,  as  such,  defends 
the  rights  of  reason  and  science.  True  and  endur- 
ing peace  there  cannot  be  until  one  of  the  com- 
batants lies  powerless  on  the  ground.  Either  the 
Church  wins,  and  then  farewell  to  all  'free  science 
and  free  teaching' —  then  are  our  universities  no 
better  than  gaols,  and  our  colleges  become  cloistral 
schools;  or  else  the  modern  rational  State  proves 
victorious — then,  in  the  twentieth  century,  human 
culture,  freedom,  and  prosperity  will  continue  their 
progressive  development  until  they  far  surpass  even 
the  height  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

"In  order  to  compass  these  high  aims,  it  is  of  the 
first  importance  that  modern  science  not  only  shat- 
ter the  false  structures  of  superstition  and  sweep 
their  ruins  from  the  path,  but  that  it  also  erect  a 
new  abode  for  human  emotion  on  the  ground  it  has 
cleared — a  'palace  of  reason/  in  which,  under  the 
influence  of  our  new  monistic  views,  we  do  rever- 
ence to  the  real  trinity  of  the  nineteenth  century— 
the  trinity  of  'the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful'  ' 
(p.  119). 


Religion  and  Philosophy  71 

These  are  the  bases  of  religion,  adopted  from 
Goethe,  which  in  Haeckel's  view  should  entirely 
replace  what  he  calls  the  Trinity  of  Kant,  viz., 
God,  Freedom,  and  Immortality — three  ideas  which 
he  regards  as  mere  superstition,  or  as  so  enveloped 
in  superstition  as  to  be  worthless. 

Occasionally,  however,  he  attacks  not  solely  ec- 
clesiastical Christianity, — in  which  enterprise  he  is 
entirely  within  his  rights, — but  he  goes  further  and 
abuses  some  of  its  more  primitive  forms  and  to 
some  extent  its  practical  fruits  also.  For  instance: 

"Primitive  Christianity  preached  the  worthless- 
ness  of  earthly  life,  regarding  it  merely  as  a  pre- 
paration for  an  eternal  life  beyond.  Hence  it 
immediately  followed  that  all  we  find  in  the  life  of 
a  man  here  below,  all  that  is  beautiful  in  art  and 
science,  in  public  and  in  private  life,  is  of  no  real 
value.  The  true  Christian  must  avert  his  eyes  from 
them ;  he  must  think  only  of  a  worthy  preparation 
for  the  life  beyond.  Contempt  of  nature,  aversion 
to  all  its  inexhaustible  charms,  rejection  of  every 
kind  of  fine  art,  are  Christian  duties;  and  they  are 
carried  out  to  perfection  when  a  man  separates 
himself  from  his  fellows,  chastises  his  body,  and 
spends  all  his  time  in  prayers  in  the  cloister  or  the 
hermit's  cell.  ...  A  Christian  art  is  a  contra- 
diction in  terms"  (p.  120). 


72  Life  and  Matter 

I  think  it  may,  without  offence,  be  said  that  if  he 
means  by  "primitive  Christianity"  the  teachings  of 
Christ,  he  is  mistaken,  and  has  something  to  learn 
as  to  what  those  teachings  really  were.  If  he  means 
the  times  of  persecution  under  the  Roman  Empire, 
he  could  hardly  expect  much  concentration  on 
artistic  pursuits  or  much  enjoyment  of  terrestrial 
existence  when  it  was  liable  to  be  violently  extin- 
guished at  any  moment:  sufficient  that  the  early 
Church  survived  its  struggle  for  existence.  But  if 
he  is  referring  to  mediaeval  Christianity  of  any  other 
than  a  debased  kind,  common  knowledge  con- 
cerning mediaeval  art  and  architecture  sufficiently 
rebuts  the  indictment.  So  much  so,  that  one 
may  almost  wonder  if  by  chance  he  happened  to 
be  thinking  of  Mohammedanism  rather  than  of 
Christianity. 

But  he  continues,  in  a  more  practical  and  observ- 
ant vein : 

"Christianity  has  no  place  for  that  well-known 
love  of  animals,  that  sympathy  with  the  nearly 
related  and  friendly  mammal?  (dogs,  horses,  cattle, 
etc.)  which  is  urged  in  the  ethical  teaching  of  many 
of  the  older  religions,  especially  Buddhism.  (Un- 
fortunately, Descartes  gave  some  support  to  the 


Religion  and  Philosophy  73 

error  in  teaching  that  man  only  has  a  sensitive  soul, 
not  the  animal.)  Whoever  has  spent  much  time  in 
the  south  of  Europe  must  have  often  witnessed 
those  frightful  sufferings  of  animals  which  fill  us 
friends  of  animals  with  the  deepest  sympathy  and 
indignation.  And  when  one  expostulates  with 
these  brutal  'Christians'  on  their  cruelty,  the  only 
answer  is,  with  a  laugh:  'But  the  beasts  are  not 
Christians'  "  (p.  126). 

This,  if  true,  and, I  have  heard  it  from  other 
sources,  does  constitute  a  rather  serious  indictment 
against  the  form  of  practical  Christianity  under- 
stood by  the  ignorant  classes  among  the  Latin  races. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  concluding  paragraph 
of  the  extract  quoted  above  (on  page  70)  from  his 
page  119: 

No  one  can  have  any  objection  to  raise  against 
the  dignity  and  worthiness  of  the  three  great  attri- 
butes which  excite  Professor  Haeckel's,  as  they 
excited  Goethe's,  worship  and  admiration,  viz.,  the 
three  "goddesses,"  as  he  calls  them:  Truth,  Good- 
ness, and  Beauty;  but  there  is  no  necessary  com- 
petition or  antagonism  between  these  and  the  other 
three  great  conceptions  which  aroused  the  venera- 
tion of  Kant:  God,  Freedom,  and  Immortality; 
nor  does  the  upholding  of  the  one  triad  mean  the 


74  Life  and  Matter 

overthrow  of  the  other:  they  may  be  all  co-eternal 
together  and  co-equal.  Nor  is  either  of  these 
triplets  inconsistent  with  some  reasonable  view  of 
what  may  be  meant  by  the  Christian  Trinity.  The 
total  possibility  of  existence  is  so  vast  that  no 
simple  formula,  nor  indeed  any  form  of  words, 
however  complex,  is  likely  to  be  able  to  sum  it  up 
and  express  its  essence  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
modes  of  expression.  It  is  a  pity,  therefore,  that 
Professor  Haeckel  should  think  it  necessary  to 
decry  one  set  of  ideas  in  order  to  support  another 
set.  There  is  room  for  all  in  this  large  universe — 
room  for  everything  except  downright  lies  and 
falseness. 

Concerning  Truth  there  is  no  need  to  speak :  it 
cannot  but  be  the  breath  of  the  nostrils  of  every 
genuine  scientific  man  ;  but  his  ideas  of  truth  should 
be  large  enough  to  take  into  account  possibilities 
far  beyond  anything  of  which  he  is  at  present  sure, 
and  he  should  be  careful  to  be  undogmatic  and 
docile  in  regions  of  which  at  present  he  has  not  the 
key. 

The  meaning  of  Goodness,  the  whole  domain  of 
ethics,  and  the  higher  possibilities  of  sainthood  of 


Religion  and  Philosophy  75 

which  the  human  spirit  has  shown  itself  capable, 
are  at  present  outside  his  domain ;  and  if  a  man  of 
science  seeks  to  dogmatise  concerning  the  emotions 
and  the  will,  and  asserts  that  he  can  reduce  them 
to  atomic  forces  and  motions  because  he  has 
learned  to  recognise  the  undoubted  truth  that 
atomic  forces  and  motions  must  accompany  them 
and  constitute  the  machinery  of  their  manifesta- 
tion here  and  now,  he  is  exhibiting  the  smallness 
of  his  conceptions  and  gibbeting  himself  as  a 
laughing-stock  to  future  generations. 

The  atmosphere  and  full  meaning  of  Beauty  also 
he  can  only  dimly  grasp.  If  he  seeks  to  explain  it 
in  terms  of  sexual  selection,  or  any  other  small  con- 
ception which  he  has  recently  been  able  to  form  in 
connection  with  vital  procedure  on  this  planet,  he 
is  explaining  nothing:  he  is  merely  showing  how 
the  perception  of  beauty  may  operate  in  certain 
cases;  but  the  inner  nature  of  beauty  and  the  faculty 
by  which  it  is  perceived  are  utterly  beyond  him. 
He  cannot  but  feel  that  the  unconscious  and  un- 
obtrusive beauty  of  field  and  hedgerow  must  have 
originated  in  obedience  to  some  primal  instinct  or 
in  fulfilment  of  some  immanent  desire,  some  lofty 


76  Life  and  Matter 

need  quite  other  than  anything  he  recognises  as 
human. 

And  if  a  poet,  witnessing  the  colours  of  a  sunset, 
for  instance,  or  the  profusion  of  beauty  with  which 
snow  mountains  seem  to  fling  themselves  to  the 
heavens  in  districts  unpeopled  and  in  epochs  long 
before  human  consciousness  awoke  upon  the  earth, 
— if  such  a  seer  feels  the  revelation  weigh  upon  his 
spirit  with  an  almost  sickening  pressure,  and  is  con- 
strained to  ascribe  this  wealth  and  prodigality  of 
beauty  to  the  joy  of  the  Eternal  Being  in  His  own 
existence,  to  an  anticipation,  as  it  were,  of  the 
developments  which  lie  before  the  universe  in  which 
He  is  at  work,  and  which  He  is  slowly  guiding 
towards  an  unimaginable  perfection, —  it  behoves 
the  man  of  science  to  put  his  hand  upon  his  mouth, 
lest,  in  his  efforts  to  be  true,  in  the  absence  of 
knowledge,  he  find  himself  uttering,  in  his  ignor- 
ance, words  of  lamentable  folly  or  blasphemy. 

Man  and  Nature 

Consider  our  own  position — it  is  surely  worth 
considering:  We  are  a  part  of  this  planet;  on  one 
side  certainly  and  distinctly  a  part  of  this  material 


Religion  and  Philosophy  77 

world,  a  part  which  has  become  self-conscious. 
At  first,  we  were  a  part  which  had  become  alive; 
a  tremendous  step  that — introducing  a  number  of 
powers  and  privileges  which  previously  had  been 
impossible,  but  that  step  introduced  no  respon- 
sibility; we  were  no  longer,  indeed,  urged  by  mere 
pressure  from  behind,  we  were  guided  by  our 
instincts  and  appetites,  but  we  still  obeyed  the 
strongest  external  motive,  almost  like  electro- 
magnetic automata.  Now,  however,  we  have  be- 
come conscious,  able  to  look  before  and  after,  to 
learn  consciously  from  the  past,  to  strive  strenu- 
ously towards  the  future;  we  have  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  we  can  choose  the  one 
and  reject  the  other,  and  are  thus  burdened  with  a 
sense  of  responsibility  for  our  acts.  We  still  obey 
the  strongest  motive,  doubtless,  but  there  is  some- 
thing in  ourselves  which  makes  it  a  motive  and 
regulates  its  strength.  We  can  drift  like  other 
animals,  and  often  do;  but  we  can  also  obey  our 
own  volition. 

I  would  not  deny  the  rudiments  of  self-conscious- 
ness, and  some  of  what  it  implies,  to  certain  domes- 
tic animals,  notably  the  dog;  but  domestication 


78  Life  and  Matter 

itself  is  a  result  of  humanity,  and  undoubtedly  the 
attributes  we  are  discussing  are  chiefly  and  almost 
solely  human ;  they  can  hardly  be  detected  in  wild 
nature.  No  other  animal  can  have  a  full  percep- 
tion of  its  own  individuality  and  personality  as 
separate  from  the  rest  of  existence.  Such  ideas  do 
not  occur  in  the  early  periods  of  even  human  in- 
fancy: they  are  a  later  growth.  Self-consciousness 
must  have  become  prominent  at  a  certain  stage  in 
the  evolutionary  process. 

How  it  all  arose  is  a  legitimate  problem  for 
genetic  psychology,  but  to  the  plain  man  it  is  a 
puzzle;  our  ancestors  invented  legends  to  account 
for  it — legends  of  apples  and  serpents  and  the  like; 
but  the  fact  is  there,  however  it  be  accounted  for. 
The  truth  embedded  in  that  old  Genesis  legend  is 
deep ;  it  is  the  legend  of  man's  awakening  from 
a  merely  animal  life  to  consciousness  of  good  and 
evil,  no  longer  obeying  his  primal  instincts  in  a  state 
of  thoughtlessness  and  innocency — a  state  in  which 
deliberate  vice  was  impossible  and  therefore  higher 
and  purposed  goodness  also  impossible,  — it  was  the 
introduction  of  a  new  sense  into  the  world,  the  sense 
of  conscience,  the  power  of  deliberate  choice;  the 


Religion  and  Philosophy  79 

power  also  of  conscious  guidance,  the  management 
of  things  and  people  external  to  himself,  for  pre- 
conceived ends.  Man  was  beginning  to  cease  to  be 
merely  a  passenger  on  the  planet,  controlled  by 
outside  forces ;  it  is  as  if  the  reins  were  then  for  the 
first  time  being  placed  in  his  hands;  as  if  he  was 
allowed  to  begin  to  steer,  to  govern  his  own  fate 
and  destiny,  and  to  take  over  some  considerable 
part  of  the  management  of  the  world. 

The  process  of  handing  over  the  reins  to  us  is 
still  going  on.  The  education  of  the  human  race  is 
a  long  process,  and  we  are  not  yet  fit  to  be  fully 
trusted  with  the  steering  gear;  but  the  words  of 
the  old  serpent  were  true  enough :  once  open  our 
eyes  to  the  perception  and  discrimination  of  good 
and  evil,  once  become  conscious  of  freedom  of 
choice,  and  sooner  or  later,  we  must  inevitably  ac- 
quire some  of  the  power  and  responsibility  of  gods. 
A  fall  it  might  seem,  just  as  a  vicious  man  some- 
times seems  degraded  below  the  beasts,  but  in 
promise  and  potency,  a  rise  it  really  was. 

The  oneness  between  ourselves  and  nature  is  not 
a  thing  to  be  deplored ;  it  is  a  thing  to  rejoice  at, 
when  properly  conceived.  It  awakens  a  kind  of 


8o  Life  and  Matter 

religious  enthusiasm  even  in  Haeckel,  who  clearly 
perceives  but  a  limited  aspect  of  it ;  yet  the  percep- 
tion is  vivid  enough  to  cause  him,  this  so-called 
Atheist,  to  close  his  Confession  of  Faith  with  words 
such  as  these: 

"Now,  at  last,  it  is  given  to  the  mightily  advanc- 
ing human  mind  to  have  its  eyes  opened ;  it  is  given 
to  it  to  show  that  a  true  knowledge  of  nature 
affords  full  satisfaction  and  inexhaustible  nourish- 
ment not  only  for  its  searching  understanding,  but 
also  for  its  yearning  spirit. 

"Knowledge  of  the  true,  training  for  the  good, 
pursuit  of  the  beautiful:  these  are  the  three  great 
departments  of  our  monism ;  by  the  harmonious 
and  consistent  cultivation  of  these  we  effect  at 
last  the  truly  beatific  union  of  religion  and  science, 
so  painfully  longed  after  by  so  many  to-day.  The 
True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good,  these  are  the 
three  august  Divine  Ones  before  which  we  bow 
the  knee  in  adoration. 

"In  the  hope  that  free  research  and  free  teaching 
may  always  continue,  I  conclude  my  monistic  Con- 
fession of  FaitJi  with  the  words :  '  May  God,  the 
Spirit  of  the  Good,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  True,  be 
with  us.' 

This  is  clearly  the  utterance  of  a  man  to  whose 
type  I  unconsciously  referred  in  an  article  written 
two  years  ago  (Ilibbcrt  Journal,  January,  1903), 


Religion  and  Philosophy  81 

from  which  I  now  make  the  following  appropriate 
extract : 

Looking  at  the  loom  of  nature,  the  feeling  not  of 
despair,  but  of  what  has  been  called  atheism,  one 
ingredient  of  atheism,  has  arisen :  atheism  never 
fully  realised,  and  wrongly  so  called ;  recently  it 
has  been  called  severe  Theism,  indeed ;  for  it  is 
joyful  sometimes,  interested  and  placid  always, 
exultant  at  the  strange  splendour  of  the  spectacle 
which  its  intellect  has  laid  bare  to  contemplation, 
satisfied  with  the  perfection  of  the  mechanism,  con- 
tent to  be  a  part  of  the  self-generated  organism, 
and  endeavouring  to  think  that  the  feelings  of  duty, 
of  earnest  effort,  and  of  faithful  service,  which  con- 
spicuously persist  in  spite  of  all  discouragement, 
are  on  this  view  intelligible  as  well  as  instinctive, 
and  sure  that  nothing  less  than  unrepining,  unfalter- 
ing, unswerving  acquiescence  is  worthy  of  our 
dignity  as  man. 

The  above  Confession  of  Fait  Ji,  then,  is  very  well; 
for  the  man  himself  very  well,  indeed,  but  it  is  not 
enough  for  the  race.  Other  parts  of  Ilaeckel's 
writings  show  that  it  is  not  enough,  and  that  his 
conception  of  what  he  means  by  Godhead  is  narrow 

6 


82  Life  and  Matter 

and  limited  to  an  extent  at  which  instinct,  reason, 
and  experience  alike  rebel.  No  one  can  be  satisfied 
with  conceptions  below  the  highest  which  to  him 
are  possible:  I  doubt  if  it  is  given  to  man  to  think 
out  a  clear  and  consistent  system  higher  and  nobler 
than  the  real  truth.  Our  highest  thoughts  are 
likely  to  be  nearest  to  reality :  they  must  be  stages 
in  the  direction  of  truth,  else  they  could  not  have 
come  to  us  and  been  recognised  as  highest.  So, 
also,  with  our  longings  and  aspirations  towards 
ultimate  perfection,  those  desires  which  we  recog- 
nise as  our  noblest  and  best ;  surely  they  must  have 
some  correspondence  with  the  facts  of  existence, 
else  had  they  been  unattainable  by  us.  Reality  is 
not  to  be  surpassed,  except  locally  and  temporarily, 
by  the  ideals  of  knowledge  and  goodness  invented 
by  a  fraction  of  itself;  and  if  we  could  grasp  the 
entire  scheme  of  things,  so  far  from  wishing  to 

"shatter  it  to  bits  and  then 
Remould  it  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire," 

we  should  hail  it  as  better  and  more  satisfying  than 
any  of  our  random  imaginings.  The  universe  is  in 
no  way  limited  to  our  conceptions:  it  has  a  reality 
apart  from  them ;  nevertheless,  they  themselves 


Religion  and  Philosophy  83 

constitute  a  part  of  it,  and  can  only  take  a  clear 
and  consistent  character  in  so  far  as  they  correspond 
with  something  true  and  real.  Whatever  we  can 
clearly  and  consistently  conceive,  that  is  ipso  facto 
in  a  sense  already  existent  in  the  universe  as  a 
whole ;  and  that,  or  something  better,  we  shall  find 
to  be  a  dim  foreshadowing  of  a  higher  reality. 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE  ON  CONSTRUCTIVE  THOUGHT 
AND  OPTIMISM 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  explain  how  it  is  that, 
to  a  physicist  unsmitten  with  any  taint  of  solipsism, 
a  well-elaborated  scheme  which  is  consistent  with 
already  known  facts  necessarily  seems  to  correspond, 
or  have  close  affinity,  with  the  truth.  It  is  the  re- 
sult of  experience  of  a  mathematical  theorem  con- 
cerning unique  distributions.  For  instance,  it  can 
be  shown  that  in  an  electric  field,  however  com- 
plicated, any  distribution  of  potential  which  satisfies 
boundary  conditions  and  one  or  two  other  essential 
criteria  must  be  the  actual  distribution ;  for  it  has 
been  rigorously  proved  that  there  cannot  be  two  or 
more  distributions  which  satisfy  those  conditions, 
hence  if  one  is  arrived  at  theoretically,  or  intuitively, 
or  by  any  means,  it  must  be  the  correct  one;  and  no 
further  proof  is  required. 

So,  also,  in  connection  with  analogies  and  work- 
ing models :  although  they  must  necessarily  be 


84  Life  and  Matter 

imperfect,  so  long  as  they  are  only  analogies,  yet  the 
making  or  imagining  of  models  (not  necessarily  or 
usually  a  material  model,  but  a  conceptual  model) 
is  a  recognised  way  of  arriving  at  an  understanding 
of  recondite  and  ultra-sensual  processes,  occurring, 
say,  in  the  ether  or  elsewhere.  As  an  addition  to 
evidence  derived  from  such  experiments  as  have 
been  found  possible,  and  as  a  supplement  to  the 
experience  out  of  which,  as  out  of  a  nucleus,  every 
conception  must  grow,  the  mind  is  set  to  design 
and  invent  a  self-coherent  scheme  which  shall  imitate 
as  far  as  possible  the  results  exhibited  by  nature. 
By  then  using  this  as  a  working  hypothesis,  and 
pressing  it  to  extremes,  it  can  be  gradually  amended 
until  it  shows  no  sign  of  discordance  or  failure  any- 
where, and  even  serves  as  a  guide  to  new  and  previ- 
ously unsuspected  phenomena.  When  that  stage  is 
reached,  it  is  provisionally  accepted  and  tentatively 
held  as  a  step  in  the  direction  of  the  truth;  though 
the  mind  is  always  kept  ready  to  improve  and 
modify  and  enlarge  it,  in  accordance  with  the  needs 
of  more  thorough  investigation  and  fresh  discovery. 
It  was  so,  for  instance,  with  Maxwell's  electromag- 
netic theory  of  light ;  and  there  are  a  multitude  of 
other  instances. 

In  the  transcendental  or  ultra-mundane  or  super- 
sensual  region  there  is  the  further  difficulty  to  be 
encountered,  that  we  are  not  acquainted  with  any- 
thing like  all  the  "boundary  conditions,"  so  to 
speak;  we  only  know  our  little  bit  of  the  boundary, 
and  we  may  err  egregiously  in  inferring  or  attempt- 
ing to  infer  the  remainder.  We  may  even  make  a 


Religion  and  Philosophy  85 

mistake  as  to  the  form  of  function  adapted  to  the 
case.  Nevertheless  there  is  no  better  clue,  and  the 
human  mind  is  impelled  to  do  the  best  it  can  with 
the  confessedly  imperfect  data  which  it  finds  at  its 
disposal.  The  result,  therefore,  in  this  region,  is 
no  system  of  definite  and  certain  truth,  as  in  physics, 
but  is  either  suspense  of  judgment  altogether,  or 
else  a  tentative  scheme  or  working  hypothesis,  to 
be  held  undogmatically,  in  an  attitude  of  constant 
receptiveness  for  further  light,  and  in  full  readiness 
for  modification  in  the  direction  of  the  truth. 

So  far  concerning  the  ascertainment  of  truth 
alone,  in  intangible  regions  of  inquiry.  The  further 
hypothesis  that  such  truth  when  found  will  be  most 
satisfactory,  or,  in  other  words,  higher  and  better 
than  any  alternative  plan, — the  conviction  that  faith 
in  the  exceeding  grandeur  of  reality  shall  not  be 
confounded, — requires  further  justification;  and  its 
grounds  are  not  so  easy  to  fermulate.  Perhaps  the 
feeling  is  merely  human  and  instinctive;  but  it  is 
existent  and  customary,  I  believe,  among  physicists, 
possibly  among  men  of  science  in  general,  though 
I  cannot  speak  for  all;  and  it  must  be  based  upon 
familiarity  with  a  mass  of  experience  in  which,  after 
long  groping  and  guesswork,  the  truth  has  ulti- 
mately been  discovered,  and  been  recognised  as 
"very  good."  It  is  illustrated,  for  instance,  by  the 
words  in  which  Tyndall  closes  the  first  edition  of  his 
book  on  Sound,  wherein,  after  explaining  Ilelm- 
holtz's  brilliant  theory  of  Corti's  organ  and  the 
musical  mechanism  of  the  ear,  — a  theory  which, 
amid  the  difficulties  of  actual  observation,  was 


86  Life  and  Matter 

necessarily  at  first  saturated  with  hypothesis,  and 
is  not  even  yet  fully  verified, — he  says: 

"  Within  the  ears  of  men,  and  without  their 
knowledge  or  contrivance,  this  lute  of  three  thou- 
sand strings  has  existed  for  ages,  accepting  the 
music  of  the  outer  world,  and  rendering  it  fit  for 
reception  by  the  brain.  ...  I  do  not  ask  you 
to  consider  these  views  as  established,  but  only  as 
probable.  They  present  the  phenomena  in  a  con- 
nected and  intelligible  form ;  and  should  they  be 
doomed  to  displacement  by  a  more  correct  or  com- 
prehensive theory,  it  will  assuredly  be  found  that 
the  wonder  is  not  diminished  by  the  substitution  of 
the  truth.*' 


CHAPTER  VI 

MIND  AND  MATTER 

WHAT,  then,  is  the  probable  essence  of  truth 
in  Professor"  Haeckel's  philosophy?  for  it 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  speculations  of  an 
eminent  man  are  baseless,  or  that  he  has  been  led 
to  his  view  of  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  truth  by 
some  wholly  erroneous  path;  his  initiative  convic- 
tions are  to  be  respected,  for  they  are  based  on  a 
far  wider  experience  and  knowledge  of  fact  than  is 
given  to  the  average  man ;  and  for  the  average  man 
to  consider  it  likely  that  there  is  no  foundation 
whatever  for  the  life  convictions  of  a  great  special- 
ist is  as  foolish  as  to  suppose  it  probable  that  they 
are  certain  and  infallible,  or  that  they  arc  uncritic- 
ally to  be  accepted  even  in  regions  beyond  those 
over  which  his  jurisdiction  extends. 

First  as  to  the  "law  of  substance,"  by  which  he 
sets  so  much  store;  the  fact  which  he  is  really, 
though  indistinctly,  trying  to  emphasise,  is  what  I 

87 


88  Life  and  Matter 

have  preferred  to  formulate  as  "the  persistence  of 
the  really  existent,"  see  page  29;  and,  with  that 
modification,  we  can  agree  with  Haeckel,  or  with 
what  I  take  to  be  his  inner  meaning,  to  some 
extent.  We  may  all  fairly  agree,  I  think,  that 
whatever  really  and  fundamentally  exists  must,  so 
far  as  bare  existence  is  concerned,  be  independent 
of  time.  It  may  go  through  many  changes,  and 
thus  have  a  history;  that  is  to  say,  it  must  have 
definite  time-relations,  so  far  as  its  changes  are  con- 
cerned ;  but  it  can  hardly  be  thought  of  as  either 
going  out  of  existence  or  as  coming  into  existence 
at  any  given  period,  though  it  may  completely 
change  its  form  and  accidents;  everything  basal 
must  have  a  past  and  a  future  of  some  kind  or 
other,  though  any  special  concatenation  or  arrange- 
ment may  have  a  date  of  origin  and  of  destruction. 
A  crowd,  for  instance,  is  of  this  fugitive  charac- 
ter: it  assembles  and  it  disperses;  its  existence  as  a 
crowd  is  over,  but  its  constituent  elements  persist ; 
and  the  same  can  be  said  of  a  planet  or  a  sun.  Yet 
for  some  "soul"  or  underlying  reality  even  in  these 
temporary  accretions  there  is  permanence  of  a  sort  : 
— Tyndall's  "streak  of  morning  cloud,"  though  it 


Mind  and  Matter  89 

may  have  "melted  into  infinite  azure,"  has  not 
thereby  become  non-existent,  although  as  a  visible 
object  it  has  disappeared  from  our  ken  and  become 
a  memory  only.  It  is  true  that  it  was  a  mere  aggre- 
gate or  accidental  agglomeration — it  had  developed 
no  self-consciousness;  nothing  that  could  be  called 
personality  or  identity  characterised  it, — and  so  no 
individual  persistence  is  to  be  expected  for  it ;  yet 
even  it — low  down  in  the  scale  of  being  as  it  is — 
even  it  has  rejoined  the  general  body  of  aqueous 
vapour  whence,  through  the  incarnating  influence 
of  night,  it  arose.  The  thing  that  is  both  was  and 
shall  be,  and  whatever  does  not  satisfy  this  condi- 
tion must  be  an  accidental  or  fugitive  or  essentially 
temporary  conglomeration  or  assemblage,  and  not 
one  of  the  fundamental  entities  of  the  universe.  It 
is  interesting  to  remember  that  this  was  one  of  the 
opinions  strongly  held  by  the  late  Professor  Tait, 
who  considered  that  persistence  or  conservation  was 
the  test  or  criterion  of  real  existence. 

The  question,  How  many  fundamental  entities  in 
this  sense  there  are,  and  what  they  are,  is  a  difficult 
one.  Many  people,  including  such  opposite  think- 
ers as  Tait  and  Haeckel,  would  say  "matter"  and 


QO  Life  and  Matter 

"energy"  ;  though  Haeckel  chooses,  on  his  own  ac- 
count, to  add  that  these  two  are  one.  Perhaps 
Professor  Ostwald  would  agree  with  him  there; 
though  to  me  the  meaning  is  vague.  Physical 
science,  pushed  to  the  last  resort,  would  probably 
reply  that,  within  its  sphere  of  knowledge  at  the 
present  stage,  the  fundamental  entities  are  ether 
and  motion  ;  and  that  of  other  things  at  present  it 
knows  next  to  nothing.  If  physical  science  is  in- 
terrogated as  to  the  probable  persistence,  i.  e.,  the 
fundamental  existence,  of  "life"  or  of  "mind,"  it 
ought  to  reply  that  it  does  not  know;  if  asked 
about  "personality,"  or  "souls,"  or  "God," 
about  all  of  which  Professor  Haeckel  has  fully 
fledged  opinions, — it  would  have  to  ask  for  a  de- 
finition of  the  terms,  and  would  speak  either  not  at 
all  or  with  bated  breath  concerning  them. 

The  possibility  that  "life"  may  be  a  real  and 
basal  form  of  existence,  and  therefore  persistent,  is 
a  possibility  to  be  borne  in  mind.  It  may  at  least 
serve  as  a  clue  to  investigation,  and  some  day  may 
bear  fruit ;  at  present  it  is  no  better  than  a  working 
hypothesis.  It  is  one  that  on  the  whole  commends 
itself  to  me;  for  I  conceive  that  though  we  know 


Mind  and  Matter  91 

of  it  only  as  a  function  of  terrestrial  matter,  yet 
that  it  has  another  aspect  too,  and  I  say  this  be- 
cause I  see  it  arriving  and  leaving — animating  mat- 
ter for  a  time  and  then  quitting  it,  just  as  I  see  dew 
appearing  and  disappearing  on  a  plate.  Apart  from 
a  solid  surface,  dew  cannot  exist  as  such ;  and  to  a 
savage  it  might  seem  to  spring  into  and  to  go  out 
of  existence — to  be 'an  exudation  from  the  solid, 
and  dependent  wholly  upon  it;  but  we  happen  to 
know  more  about  it ;  we  know  that  it  has  a  per- 
manent and  continuous  existence  in  an  impercept- 
ible, intangible,  supersensual  form,  though  its  visible 
manifestation  in  the  form  of  mist  or  dew  is  tempor- 
ary and  evanescent.  Perhaps  it  is  permissible  to 
trace  in  that  elementary  phenomenon  some  super- 
ficial analogy  to  an  incarnation. 

The  fact  concerning  life  which  lies  at  the  root  of 
Professor  Haeckel's  doctrine  about  its  origin  is 
that  living  beings  have  undoubtedly  made  their  ap- 
pearance on  this  planet,  where  at  one  time  they 
cannot  be  suspected  of  having  existed.  Conse- 
quently, that  whatever  life  may  be,  it  is  something 
which  can  begin  to  interact  with  the  atoms  of  ter- 
restrial matter  at  some  period  or  state  of  aggregation 


92  Life  and  Matter 

or  other  condition  of  elaboration, —  a  condition 
which  may  perhaps  be  rather  definite,  if  only  we 
were  aware  of  what  it  was.  But  that  undoubted 
fact  is  quite  consistent  with  any  view  as  to  the 
nature  of  "life,"  and  even  with  any  view  as  to  the 
mode  of  its  terrestrial  commencement ;  there  is 
nothing  in  that  to  say  that  it  is  a  function  of  matter 
alone,  any  more  than  that  the  wind  is  a  function  of 
the  leaves  which  dance  under  its  influence;  there  is 
nothing  even  to  contradict  the  notion  that  it  sprang 
into  existence  suddenly  at  a  literal  word  of  com- 
mand. The  improbability  or  absurdity  of  such  a 
conception  as  this  last,  except  in  the  symbolism  of 
poetry,  is  extreme,  and  it  is  unthinkable  by  any 
educated  person;  but  its  improbability  depends 
upon  other  considerations  than  biologic  ones,  and 
it  is  as  repugnant  to  an  enlightened  theology  as  to 
any  other  science. 

The  mode  in  which  biological  speculation  as  to 
the  probable  development  of  living  out  of  dead 
matter,  and  the  general  relation  of  protoplasm  to 
physics  and  chemistry,  can  be  surmised  or  pro- 
visionally granted,  without  thereby  concurring  in 
any  destructive  criticism  of  other  facts  and  experi- 


Mind  and  Matter  93 

ences,  is  explained  in  Chapter  X.  on  "Life," 
farther  on :  and  there  I  emphasise  my  agreement 
with  parts  of  the  speculative  contentions  of  Profes- 
sor Haeckel  on  the  positive  side. 

Soul  and  Body 

Let  us  consider  what  are  the  facts  scientifically 
known  concerning  the  interaction  between  mind 
and  matter.  Fundamentally  they  amount  to  this : 
that  a  complex  piece  of  matter,  called  the  brain,  is 
the  organ  or  instrument  of  mind  and  consciousness; 
that  if  it  be  stimulated,  mental  activity  results;  that 
if  it  be  injured  or  destroyed,  no  manifestation  of 
mental  activity  is  possible.  Moreover,  it  is  as- 
sumed, and  need  not  be  doubted,  that  a  portion  of 
brain  substance  is  consumed,  oxidised  let  us  say,  in 
every  act  of  mentation,  using  that  term  in  the 
vaguest  and  most  general  sense,  and  including  in  it 
unconscious  as  well  as  conscious  operations. 

Suppose  we  grant  all  this,  what  then?  We  have 
granted  that  brain  is  the  means  whereby  mind  is 
made  manifest  on  this  material  plane,  it  is  the  in- 
strument through  which  alone  we  know  it,  but  we 
have  not  granted  that  mind  is  limited  to  its  material 


94  Life  and  Matter 

manifestation;  nor  can  we  maintain  that  without 
matter  the  things  we  call  mind,  intelligence,  con- 
sciousness, have  no  sort  of  existence.  Mind  may 
be  incorporate  or  incarnate  in  matter,  but  it  may 
also  transcend  it ;  it  is  through  the  region  of  ideas 
and  the  intervention  of  mind  that  we  have  become 
aware  of  the  existence  of  matter.  It  is  injudicious 
to  discard  our  primary  and  fundamental  awareness 
for  what  is,  after  all,  an  instinctive  inference  or  in- 
terpretation of  certain  sensations. 

The  realities  underlying  those  sensations  are  only 
known  to  us  by  inference,  but  they  have  an  inde- 
pendent existence :  in  their  inmost  nature,  they 
may  be  quite  other  than  they  seem,  and  they  are 
in  no  way  dependent  upon  our  perception  of  them. 
So,  also,  our  actual  personality  may  be  something 
considerably  removed  from  our  conception  of  it 
based  on  our  present  terrestrial  consciousness — a 
form  of  consciousness  suited  to,  and  developed  by, 
our  temporary  existence  here,  but  not  necessarily 
more  than  a  fraction  of  our  total  self. 

Take  an  analogy :  the  eye  is  the  organ  of  vision ; 
by  it  we  perceive  light.  Stimulate  the  retina  in 
any  way,  and  we  are  conscious  of  the  sensation  of 


Mind  and  Matter  95 

light;  injure  or  destroy  the  eye,  and  vision  becomes 
imperfect  or  impossible.  If  eyes  did  not  exist,  we 
should  probably  know  nothing  about  light,  and  we 
might  be  tempted  to  say  that  light  did  not  exist. 
In  a  sense,  to  a  blind  race,  light  would  not  exist, 
that  is  to  say,  there  would  be  no  sensation  of  light, 
there  would  be  no  sight ;  but  the  underlying  physi- 
cal cause  of  that  sensation — the  ripples  in  the  ether 
—would  be  there  all  the  time.  And  it  is  these 
ethereal  ripples  which  a  physicist  understands  by 
the  term  "light."  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  a 
race  of  blind  physicists  would  be  able  to  devise 
experimental  means  whereby  they  could  make  ex- 
periments on  what  to  us  is  luminous  radiation,  just 
as  we  now  make  experiments  on  electric  waves,  for 
which  we  have  no  sense  organ.  It  would  be  absurd 
for  a  psychologist  to  inform  them  that  light  did  not 
exist  because  sight  did  not.  The  term  might  have 
to  be  reconsidered  and  redefined;  indeed,  most 
likely  a  polysyllabic  term  would  be  employed,  as  is 
unfortunately  usual  when  a  thing  of  which  the  race 
in  general  has  no  intimate  knowledge  requires  no- 
menclature. But  the  thing  would  be  there,  though 
its  mode  of  manifestation  would  be  different; 


96  Life  and  Matter 

a  term  like  "vision"  might  still  be  employed  to 
signify  our  mode  of  perceiving  and  experiencing 
the  agency  which  now  manifests  itself  to  us  through 
our  eyes ;  and  plants  might  grow  by  the  aid  of  that 
agency  just  as  they  do  now. 

So,  also,  brain  is  truly  the  organ  of  mind  and 
consciousness,  and  to  a  brainless  race  these  terms, 
and  most  other  terms,  would  be  meaningless;  but 
no  one  is  at  liberty  to  assert,  on  the  strength  of 
that  fact,  that  the  realities  underlying  our  use  of 
those  terms  have  no  existence  apart  from  terrestrial 
brains.  Nor  can  we  say  with  any  security  that  the 
stuff  called  "brain"  is  the  only  conceivable  ma- 
chinery which  they  are  able  to  utilise :  though  it  is 
true  that  we  know  of  no  other.  Yet  it  would  seem 
that  such  a  proposition  must  be  held  by  a  Material- 
ist, or  indeed  by  a  Monist,  if  that  term  be  employed 
in  its  narrowest  and  most  unphilosophic  sense — a 
sense  which  would  be  better  expressed  by  the  term 
Materialistic-Monist,  with  a  limitation  of  the  term 
"matter"  to  the  terrestrial  chemical  elements  and 
their  combinations,  /.  e.,  to  that  form  of  substance 
to  which  the  human  race  has  grown  accustomed — a 
sense  which  tends  to  exclude  ethereal  and  other 


Mind  and  Matter  97 

generalisations  and  unknown  possibilities  such  as 
would  occur  to  a  philosophic  Monist  of  the  widest 
kind. 

For  that  it  may  ultimately  be  discovered  that 
there  is  some  intimate  and  necessary  connection 
between  a  generalised  form  of  matter  and  some  lofty 
variety  of  mind  is  not  to  be  denied;  though,  also,  it 
cannot  be  asserted.  It  has  been  surmised,  for  in- 
stance, that  just  as  the  corpuscles  and  atoms  of 
matter,  in  their  intricate  movements  and  relations, 
combine  to  form  the  brain-cell  of  a  human  being; 
so  the  cosmic  bodies,  the  planets  and  suns  and 
other  groupings  of  the  ether,  may  perhaps  combine 
to  form  something  corresponding,  as  it  were,  to  the 
brain-cell  of  some  transcendent  Mind.  The  idea  is 
to  be  found  in  Newton.  The  thing  is  a  mere  guess, 
it  is  not  an  impossibility,  and  it  cannot  be  excluded 
from  a  philosophic  system  by  any  negative  state- 
ment based  on  scientific  fact.  In  some  such  sense 
as  that,  matter  and  mind  may  be,  for  all  we  know, 
eternally  and  necessarily  connected ;  they  can  be 
different  aspects  of  some  fundamental  unity ;  and  a 
lofty  kind  of  monism  can  be  true,  just  as  a  lofty 
kind  of  pantheism  can  be  true.  But  the  miserable, 


98  Life  and  Matter 

degraded  monism  and  lower  pantheism,  which  limits 
the  term  "God"  to  that  part  of  existence  of  which 
we  are  now  aware, — sometimes,  indeed,  to  a  fraction 
only  of  that, — which  limits  the  term  "mind"  to  that 
of  which  we  are  ourselves  conscious,  and  the  term 
"matter"  to  the  dust  of  the  earth  and  the  other 
visible  bodies,  is  a  system  of  thought  appropriate, 
perhaps,  to  a  fertile  and  energetic  portion  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  but  not  likely  to  survive  as  a 
system  of  perennial  truth. 

The  term  "organ"  itself  should  have  given  pause 
to  any  one  desirous  of  promulgating  a  scheme  such 
as  that. 

"Organ"  is  a  name  popularly  given  to  an  instru- 
ment of  music.  Without  it,  or  some  other  instru- 
ment, no  material  manifestation  or  display  of  music 
is  possible;  it  is  an  instrument  for  the  incarnation 
of  music — the  means  whereby  it  interacts  with  the 
material  world  and  throws  the  air  and  so  our  ears 
into  vibration ;  it  is  the  means  whereby  we  appre- 
hend it.  Injure  the  organ,  and  the  music  is  imper- 
fect; destroy  it,  and  it  ceases  to  be  possible.  But  is 
it  to  be  asserted,  on  the  strength  of  that  fact,  that 
the  term  "music"  has  no  significance  apart  from  its 


Mind  and  Matter  99 

material  manifestation?  Have  the  ideas  of  Sir  Ed- 
ward Elgar  no  reality  apart  from  their  record  on 
paper  and  reproduction  by  an  orchestra?  It  is  true 
that  without  suitable  instruments  and  a  suitable 
sense  organ  we  should  know  nothing  of  music,  but 
it  cannot  be  supposed  that  its  underlying  essence 
would  be  therefore  extinct  or  non-existent  and 
meaningless.  Can  there  not  be  in  the  universe  a 
multitude  of  things  which  matter  as  we  know  it  is 
incompetent  to  express?  Is  it  not  the  complaint  of 
every  genius  that  his  material  is  intractable,  that  it 
is  difficult  to  coerce  matter  as  he  knows  it  into  the 
service  of  mind  as  he  is  conscious  of  it,  and  that  his 
conceptions  transcend  his  powers  of  expression? 

The  connection  between  soul  and  body,  or,  more 
generally,  between  spiritual  and  material,  has  been 
illustrated  by  the  connection  between  the  meaning 
of  a  sentence  and  the  written  or  spoken  word  con- 
veying that  meaning.  The  writing  or  the  speaking 
may  be  regarded  as  an  incarnation  of  the  meaning, 
a  mode  of  stating  or  exhibiting  its  essence.  As 
delivered,  the  sentence  must  have  time  relations;  it 
has  a  beginning,  middle,  and  end;  it  may  be  re- 
peated, and  the  same  general  meaning  may  be 


ioo  Life  and  Matter 

expressed  in  other  words ;  but  the  intrinsic  meaning 
of  the  sentence  itself  need  have  no  time  relations, 
it  may  be  true  always,  it  may  exist  as  an  eternal 
"now,"  though  it  may  be  perceived  and  expressed 
by  humanity  with  varying  clearness  from  time  to 
time. 

The  soul  of  a  thing  is  its  underlying,  permanent 
reality,  that  which  gives  it  its  meaning  and  confers 
upon  it  its  attributes.  The  body  is  an  instrument 
or  mechanism  for  the  manifestation  or  sensible  pre- 
sentation of  what  else  would  be  imperceptible.  It 
is  useless  to  ask  whether  a  soul  is  immortal — a  soul 
is  always  immortal  "where  a  soul  can  be  discerned  "  : 
the  question  to  ask  concerning  any  given  object  is 
whether  it  has  a  soul  or  meaning  or  personal  under- 
lying reality  at  all. 

Those  who  think  that  reality  is  limited  to  its 
terrestrial  manifestation  doubtless  have  a  philo- 
sophy of  their  own,  to  which  they  are  entitled  and 
to  which  at  any  rate  they  are  welcome ;  but  if  they 
set  up  to  teach  others  that  monism  signifies  a  limita- 
tion of  mind  to  the  potentialities  of  matter  as  at 
present  known;  if  they  teach  a  pantheism  which 
identifies  God  with  nature  in  this  narrow  sense;  if 


Mind  and  Matter  101 

they  hold  that  mind  and  what  they  call  matter  are 
so  intimately  connected  that  no  transcendence  is 
possible;  that,  without  the  cerebral  hemispheres, 
consciousness  and  intelligence  and  emotion  and 
love,  and  all  the  higher  attributes  towards  which 
humanity  is  slowly  advancing,  would  cease  to  be ; 
that  the  term  "soul"  signifies"  a  sum  of  plasma- 
movements  in  the  g'anglion  cells";  and  that  the 
term  "God"  is  limited  to  the  operation  of  a  known 
evolutionary  process,  and  can  be  represented  as 
"the  infinite  sum  of  all  natural  forces,  the  sum  of 
all  atomic  forces  and  all  ether  vibrations,"  to  quote 
Professor  Haeckel  (Confession  of  Fail 'k,  p.  78);  then 
such  philosophers  must  be  content  with  an  audience 
of  uneducated  persons,  or,  if  writing  as  men  of 
science,  must  hold  themselves  liable  to  be  opposed 
by  other  men  of  science,  who  are  able,  at  any  rate 
in  their  own  judgment,  to  take  a  wider  survey  of 
existence,  and  to  perceive  possibilities  to  which 
the  said  narrow  and  over-definite  philosophers  were 
blind. 

Life  and  Guidance 

Matter  possesses  energy  in  the  form  of  persistent 
motion,   and    it   is  propelled   by   force;  but  neither 


102  Life  and  Matter 

matter  nor  energy  possesses  the  power  of  automatic 
guidance  and  control.  Energy  has  no  directing 
power  (this  has  been  elaborated  by  Croll  and  others : 
see,  for  instance,  p.  21,  and  a  letter  in  Nature,  vol. 
xliii.,  p.  434,  thirteen  years  ago,  under  the  heading 
"Force  and  Determinism").  Inorganic  matter  is 
impelled  solely  by  pressure  from  behind:  it  is  not 
influenced  by  the  future,  nor  does  it  follow  a  pre- 
conceived course  nor  seek  a  predetermined  end. 

An  organism  animated  by  mind  is  in  a  totally 
different  case.  The  intangible  influences  of  hunger, 
of  a  call,  of  perception  of  something  ahead,  are 
then  the  dominant  feature.  An  intelligent  animal 
which  is  being  pushed  is  in  an  ignominious  position 
and  resents  it;  when  led,  or  when  voluntarily  obey- 
ing a  call,  it  is  in  its  rightful  attitude. 

The  essence  of  mind  is  design  and  purpose. 
There  are  some  who  deny  that  there  is  any  design 
or  purpose  in  the  universe  at  all :  but  how  can  that 
be  maintained  when  humanity  itself  possesses  these 
attributes?  (cf.  p.  65).  Is  it  not  more  reasonable  to 
say  that  just  as  we  are  conscious  of  the  power  of 
guidance  in  ourselves,  so  guidance  and  intelligent 
control  may  be  an  element  running  through  the 


Mind  and  Matter  103 

universe,  and  may  be  incorporated  even  in  material 
things? 

A  traveller  who  has  lost  his  way  in  a  mountain 
district,  coming  across  a  path,  may  rejoice,  saying: 
"This  will  guide  me  home."  A  Materialist,  if  he 
were  consistent,  would  laugh  such  a  traveller  to 
scorn,  saying:  "What  guidance  or  purpose  can 
there  be  in  a  material' object?  there  is  no  guidance 
or  purpose  in  the  universe ;  things  are  because  they 
cannot  be  otherwise,  not  because  of  any  intention 
underlying  them.  How  can  a  path,  which  is  little 
better  than  the  absence  of  grass  or  the  wearing 
down  of  stones,  know  where  you  live  or  guide  you 
to  any  desired  destination?  Moreover,  whatever 
knowledge  or  purpose  the  path  exhibits  must  be  in 
the  path,  must  be  a  property  of  the  atoms  of  which 
it  is  composed.  To  them  some  fraction  of  will,  of 
power,  of  knowledge,  and  of  feeling  may  perhaps 
be  attributed,  and  from  their  aggregation  some- 
thing of  the  same  kind  may  perhaps  be  deduced. 
If  the  traveller  can  decipher  that,  he  may  utilise 
the  material  object  to  his  advantage ;  but  if  he 
conceives  the  path  to  have  been  made  with  any 
teleological  object  or  intelligent  purpose,  he  is 


104  Life  and  Matter 

abandoning  himself  to  superstition,  and  is  as  likely 
to  be  led  by  it  to  the  edge  of  a  precipice  as  any- 
where else.  Let  him  follow  his  superstition  at  his 
peril!" 

This  is  not  a  quotation,  of  course:  but  it  is  a 
parable. 

Matter  is  the  instrument  and  vehicle  of  mind ; 
incarnation  is  the  mode  by  which  mind  interacts 
with  the  present  scheme  of  things,  and  thereby  the 
element  of  guidance  is  supplied;  it  can,  in  fact,  be 
embodied  in  an  intelligent  arrangement  of  inert  in- 
organic matter.  Even  a  mountain  path  exhibits 
the  property  of  guidance,  and  has  direction ;  it  is 
an  incorporation  of  intelligence,  though  itself  inert. 

Direction  is  not  a  function  of  energy.  The  energy 
of  sound  from  an  organ  is  supplied  by  the  blower 
of  the  bellows,  which  may  be  worked  by  a  me- 
chanical engine;  but  the  melody  and  harmony,  the 
sequence  and  co-existence  of  notes,  are  determined 
by  the  dominating  mind  of  the  musician :  not 
necessarily  of  the  executant  alone,  for  the  com- 
poser's mind  may  be  evoked  to  some  extent  even 
by  a  pianola.  The  music  may  be  said  to  be  incar- 
nate in  the  roll  of  paper  which  is  ready  to  be  passed 


Mind  and  Matter  105 

through  the  instrument.  So  also  can  the  concep- 
tion of  any  artist  receive  material  embodiment  in 
his  work,  and  if  a  picture  or  a  beautiful  building  is 
destroyed  it  can  be  made  to  rise  again  from  its 
ashes  provided  the  painter  or  the  architect  still 
lives:  in  other  words,  his  thought  can  receive  a 
fresh  incarnation;  and  a  perception  of  the  beautiful 
form  shall  hereafter,  -in  a  kindred  spirit,  arouse 
similar  ideas. 

There  is  thus  a  truth  in  Materialism,  but  it  is  not 
a  truth  readily  to  be  apprehended  and  formulated. 
Matter  may  become  imbued  with  life,  and  full  of 
vital  association :  something  of  the  personality  of  a 
departed  owner  seems  to  cling  sometimes  about  an 
old  garment ;  its  curves  and  folds  can  suggest  him 
vividly  to  our  recollection.  I  would  not  too  blat- 
antly assert  that  even  a  doll  on  which  much  affec- 
tion had  been  lavished  was  wholly  inert  and  material 
in  the  inorganic  sense.  The  tattered  colours  of  a 
regiment  arc  sometimes  thought  worthy  to  be  hung 
in  a  church.  They  arc  a  symbol  truly,  but  they 
may  be  something  more.  I  have  reason  to  believe 
that  a  trace  of  individuality  can  cling  about  terres- 
trial objects  in  a  vague  and  almost  imperceptible 


io6  Life  and  Matter 

fashion,  but  to  a  degree  sufficient  to  enable  those 
traces  to  be  detected  by  persons  with  suitable 
faculties. 

There  is  a  deep  truth  in  Materialism ;  and  it  is 
the  foundation  of  the  material  parts  of  worship- 
sacraments  and  the  like.  It  is  possible  to  exagger- 
ate their  efficacy,  but  it  is  also  possible  to  ignore  it 
too  completely.  The  whole  universe  is  metrical,— 
everything  is  a  question  of  degree.  A  property 
like  radio-activity  or  magnetism,  discovered  con- 
spicuously in  one  form  of  matter,  turns  out  to  be 
possessed  by  matter  of  every  kind,  though  to  very 
varying  extent. 

So  it  would  appear  to  be  with  the  power  pos- 
sessed by  matter  to  incarnate  and  display  mind. 

There  are  grades  of  incarnation :  the  most  thor- 
ough kind  is  that  illustrated  by  our  bodies;  in  them 
we  are  incarnate,  but  probably  not  even  in  that 
case  is  the  incarnation  complete.  It  is  quite  cred- 
ible that  our  whole  and  entire  personality  is  never 
terrestrially  manifest. 

There  are  grades  of  incarnation.  Some  of  the 
personality  of  an  Old  Master  is  locked  up  in  a 
painting;  and  whoever  wilfully  destroys  a  great 


Mind  and  Matter  107 

picture  is  guilty  of  something  akin  to  murder, 
namely,  the  premature  and  violent  separation  of 
soul  and  body.  Some  of  the  soul  of  a  musician 
can  be  occluded  in  a  piece  of  manuscript,  to  be 
deciphered  thereafter  by  a  perceptive  mind. 

Matter  is  the  vehicle  of  mind,  but  it  is  dominated 
and  transcended  by  it.  A  painting  is  held  together 
by  cohesive  forces  among  the  atoms  of  its  pigments ; 
and  if  those  forces  rebelled  or  turned  repulsive  the 
picture  would  be  disintegrated  and  destroyed;  yet 
those  forces  did  not  make  the  picture.  A  cathedral 
is  held  together  by  inorganic  forces,  and  it  was 
built  in  obedience  to  them,  but  they  do  not  explain 
it.  It  may  owe  its  existence  and  design  to  the 
thought  of  some  one  who  never  touched  a  stone, 
or  even  of  some  one  who  was  dead  before  it  was 
begun.  In  its  symbolism,  it  represents  One  who 
was  executed  many  centuries  ago.  Death  and 
Time  are  far  from  dominant. 

Are  we  so  sure  that,  when  we  truly  attribute  a 
sunset,  or  the  moonlight  rippling  on  a  lake,  to  the 
chemical  and  physical  action  of  material  forces, — to 
the  vibrations  of  matter  and  ether  as  we  know 
them, —  we  have  exhausted  the  whole  truth  of 


io8  Life  and  Matter 

things?  Many  a  thinker,  brooding  over  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature,  has  felt  that  they  represent  the 
thoughts  of  a  dominating,  unknown  Mind  partially 
incarnate  in  it  all 


CHAPTER  VII 

PROFESSOR   HAECKEL'S   CONJECTURAL 
PHILOSOPHY 

A  Reply, to  Mr.  McCabe 

PART  of  the  preceding,  so  far  as  it  is  a  criticism 
of  Haeckel,  was  given  by  me  in  the  first  in- 
stance as  a  Presidential  Address  to  the  Mem- 
bers of  the  Birmingham  and  Midland  Institute;  and 
the  greater  portion  of  this  Address  was  printed  in  the 
Hibbcrt  Journal  for  January,  1905.  Mr.  McCabe, 
the  translator  of  Haeckel,  thereupon  took  up  the 
cudgels  on  behalf  of  his  chief,  and  wrote  an  article 
in  the  following  July  issue,  to  the  pages  of  which 
references  will  be  given  when  quoting.  A  few  ob- 
servations of  mine  in  reply  to  this  article  emphasise 
one  or  two  points  which  perhaps  previously  were 
not  quite  clear;  and  so  this  reply,  from  the  October 
number  of  the  Plibbcrt  Journal,  may  be  conveniently 
here  reproduced. 

I  have  no  fault  to  find  with  the  tone  of  Mr. 
McCabc's  criticism  of  my  criticism  of  Haeckel;  and 
it  is  satisfactory  that  one  who  has  proved  himself 
an  enthusiastic  disciple,  as  well  as  a  most  industrious 

109 


1 10  Life  and  Matter 

and  competent  translator,  should  stand  up  for  the 
honour  and  credit  of  a  foreign  master  when  he  is 
attacked. 

But  in  admitting  the  appropriateness  and  the 
conciliatory  tone  of  his  article,  I  must  not  be  sup> 
posed  to  agree  with  its  contentions;  for  although 
he  seeks  to  show  that  after  all  there  is  but  little 
difference  between  myself  and  Haeckel, — and  al- 
though in  a  sense  that  is  true  as  regards  the  funda- 
mental facts  of  science,  distinguishing  the  facts 
themselves  from  any  hypothetical  and  interpretative 
gloss, — yet  with  Haeckel's  interpretations  and  spec- 
ulative deductions  from  the  facts,  especially  with 
the  mode  of  presentation,  and  the  crude  and  un- 
balanced attacks  on  other  fields  of  human  activity, 
my  feeling  of  divergence  occasionally  becomes 
intense. 

And  it  is  just  these  superficial,  and,  as  Mr. 
McCabe  now  admits,  hypothetical,  and  as  they  seem 
to  me  rather  rash,  excursions  into  side  issues,  which 
have  attracted  the  attention  of  the  average  man, 
and  have  succeeded  in  misleading  the  ignorant. 

If  it  could  be  universally  recognised  that 

"it  is  expressly  as  a  hypothesis  that  Haeckel  formu- 


Haeckel's  Conjectural  Philosophy    m 

lates  his  conjecture  as  to  manner  of  the  origin  of 
life"  (p.  744); 

and  if  it  could  be  further  generally  admitted  that 
his  authority  outside  biology  is  so  weak  that 

"it  is  mere  pettiness  to  carp  at  incidental  statements 
on  matters  on  which  Haeckel  is  known  to  have  or  to 
exercise  no  peculiar  authority,  or  to  labour  in  deter- 
mining the  precise  degree  of  evidence  for  the  monism 
of  the  inorganic  or  the  organic  world"  (p.  748), 

I  should  be  quite  content,  and  hope  that  I  may 
never  find  it  necessary  to  carp  at  these  things  again. 
Also  I  entirely  agree  with  Mr.  McCabe,  though  I 
have  some  doubt  whether  Professor  Haeckel  would 
equally  agree  with  him,  that 

"there  remain  the  great  questions  whether  this 
mechanical  evolution  of  the  universe  needed  intel- 
ligent control,  and  whether  the  mind  of  man  stands 
out  as  imperishable  amidst  the  wreck  of  worlds. 
These  constitute  the  serious  controversy  of  our 
time  in  the  region  of  cosmic  philosophy  or  science. 
These  are  the  rocks  that  will  divide  the  stream  of 
higher  scientific  thought  for  long  years  to  come. 
To  many  of  us  it  seems  that  a  concentration  on 
these  issues  is  as  much  to  be  desired  as  sympathy 
and  mutual  appreciation"  (p.  748). 

This  is  excellent ;  but  then  it  is  surely  true  that 


1 1 2  Life  and  Matter 

Professor  Haeckel  has  taken  great  pains  to  state 
forcibly  and  clearly  that  these  great  questions  can- 
not by  him  be  regarded  as  open ;  in  fact,  Mr. 
McCabe  himself  says : 

"Haeckel's  position,  if  expressed  at  times  with 
some  harshness,  and  not  always  with  perfect  con- 
sistency, is  well  enough  known.  He  rejects  the 
idea  of  intelligent  and  benevolent  guidance,  chiefly 
on  the  ground  of  the  facts  of  dysteleology,  and  he 
fails  to  see  any  evidence  for  exempting  the  human 
mind  from  the  general  law  of  dissolution"  (p.  748). 

Ultimately,  however,  he  appears  to  have  been 
driven  to  a  singularly  unphilosophic  view,  of  which 
Mr.  McCabe  says: 

"It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  his  latest  work 
Haeckel  regards  sensation  (or  unconscious  sentience) 
as  an  ultimate  and  irreducible  attribute  of  substance, 
like  matter  (or  extension)  and  force  (or  spirit)"  (p. 

752). 

I  call  this  unphilosophical  because — omitting  any 
reference  here  to  the  singular  parenthetical  explana- 
tions or  paraphrases,  for  which  I  suppose  Haeckel 
is  not  to  be  held  responsible — this  is  simply  aban- 
doning all  attempt  at  explanation;  it  even  closes 
the  door  to  inquiry,  and  is  equivalent  to  an  attitude 


Haeckel's  Conjectural  Philosophy    113 

proper  to  any  man  in  the  street,  for  it  virtually 
says:  "Here  the  thing  is  anyhow;  I  cannot  explain 
it."  However  legitimate  and  necessary  such  an 
attitude  may  be  as  an  expression  of  our  ignorance, 
we  ought  not  to  use  the  phrase  "ultimate  and  irre- 
ducible," as  if  no  one  could  ever  explain  it. 
Moreover,  if  it  be  true  that 

"Hacckel  does  not  tea-ch — never  did  teach — that 
the  spiritual  universe  is  an  aspect  of  the  material 
universe,  as  his  critic  makes  him  say,  it  is  his  funda- 
mental and  most  distinctive  idea  that  both  are  at- 
tributes or  aspects  of  a  deeper  reality"  (p.  745), 

in  that  case  there  is,  indeed,  but  little  difference 
between  us.  But  no  reader  of  Haeckel's  Riddle 
would  have  anticipated  that  such  a  contention  could 
be  made  by  any  devout  disciple;  and  I  wonder 
whether  Mr.  McCabe  can  adduce  any  passage  ade- 
quate to  support  so  estimable  a  position.  Surely  it 
is  difficult  to  maintain  it  in  face  of  quotations  such 
as  these : 

"The  peculiar  phenomenon  of  consciousness  is 
a  physiological  problem,  and  as  such  must 
be  reduced  to  the  phenomena  of  physics  and  chem- 
istry" (p.  65). 

"The  soul  is  in  my  opinion  a  natural  phenom- 
enon. I  therefore  consider  psychology  a  branch  of 


ii4  Life  and  Matter 

natural  science — a  section  of  physiology  .  .  . 
we  shall  give  to  the  material  basis  of  all  psychic 
activity,  without  which  it  is  inconceivable,  the 
provisional  name  of  psychoplasm"  (p.  32). 

Vital  Energy 

The  one  and  only  point  on  which  I  think  it  worth 
while  to  express  decided  dissidence  is  to  be  found 
in  the  paragraph  where  Mr.  McCabe  makes  a  state- 
ment concerning  what  he  calls  "vital  force," — a 
term  I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  used  in  my 
life.  He  claims  for  Haeckel  what  is  represented  by 
the  following  extracts  from  his  article  (pp.  745,  746, 
747): 

"He  does  not  say  that  life  is  'knocked  out  of 
existence'  when  the  material  organism  decays.  He 
says  that  the  vital  energy  no  longer  exists  as  suck, 
but  is  resolved  into  the  inorganic  energies  associated 
with  the  gases  and  relics  of  the  decaying  body. 
Thus  the  matter  looks  a  little  different  when  Sir 
Oliver  comes  to  'challenge  him  to  say  by  what  right 
he  gives  that  answer.'  He  gives  it  on  this  plain 
right,  that  science  always  finds  these  inorganic  ener- 
gies reappearing  on  the  dissolution  of  life,  and  has 
never  in  a  single  instance  found  the  slightest  reason 
to  suspect  (if  we  make  an  exception  for  the  moment 
of  psychical  research)  that  the  vital  force  as  such 
has  continued  to  exist." 


Haeckel's  Conjectural  Philosophy    115 

The  italics  are  mine.  A  little  farther  on  he  con- 
tinues : 

"There  is  no  serious  scientific  demur  to  Haeckel's 
assumption  of  a  monism  of  the  physical  world,  and 
his  identification  of  vital  force  with  ordinary  physi- 
cal and  chemical  forces." 

"Sir  Oliver  seems  to  admit,  indeed,  that  the  vital 
force  is  not  in  its  nature  distinct  from  physical  force, 
but  holds  that  it  needs  '-guidance. ' 

"On  all  sides  we  hear  the  echo  of  Professor  Le 
Conte's  words:  'Vital  force  may  now  be  regarded 
as  so  much  force  withdrawn  from  the  general  fund 
of  chemical  and  physical  forces.' 

Very  well,  then,  here  is  no  conflict  on  a  matter  of 
opinion  or  philosophic  speculation,  but  divergence 
on  a  downright  question  of  scientific  fact  (let  it  be 
noted  that  I  do  not  wish  to  hold  Professor  Haeckel 
responsible  for  these  utterances  of  his  disciple:  he 
must  surely  know  better),  and  I  wish  to  oppose  the 
fallacy  in  the  strongest  terms. 

If  it  were  true  that  vital  energy  turned  into  or 
was  anyhow  convertible  into  inorganic  energy ;  if  it 
were  true  that  a  dead  body  had  more  inorganic 
energy  than  a  live  one;  if  it  were  true  that  these  in- 
organic energies  always  or  ever  reappear  on  the  dis- 
solution of  life,  then  undoubtedly  cadit  quccstio ; 


ii6  Life  and  Matter 

life  would  immediately  be  proved  to  be  a  form  of 
energy,  and  would  enter  into  the  scheme  of  physics. 
But  inasmuch  as  all  this  is  untrue, — the  direct  con- 
trary of  the  truth, — I  maintain  that  life  is  not  a  form 
of  energy;  that  it  is  not  included  in  our  present 
physical  categories;  that  its  explanation  is  still  to 
be  sought.  And  I  have  further  stated — though  there 
I  do  not  dogmatise — that  it  appears  to  me  to  belong 
to  a  separate  order  of  existence,  which  interacts 
with  this  material  frame  of  things,  and,  while  there, 
exerts  guidance  and  control  on  the  energy  which 
already  here  exists  (cf.  p.  21);  for,  though  they 
alter  the  quantity  of  energy  no  whit,  and  though 
they  merely  utilise  available  energy  like  any  other 
machine,  live  things  are  able  to  direct  inorganic 
terrestrial  energy  along  new  and  special  paths,  so  as 
to  achieve  results  which  without  such  living  agency 
could  not  have  occurred — e.  g.,  forests,  ant-hills, 
birds'  nests,  Forth  bridge,  sonatas,  cathedrals. 

I  have  never  taught,  nor  for  a  moment  thought, 
that  "vital  force  is  akin  to  physical  force,  but  that 
it  needs  guidance"  (p.  747);  the  phrase  sounds  to 
me  nonsense.  I  perceive,  not  as  a  theory,  but  as  a 
fact,  that  life  is  itself  a.  guiding  principle,  a  control- 


Haeckel's  Conjectural  Philosophy    117 

ling  agency  ;  i.  e.,  that  a  live  animal  or  plant  can  and 
does  guide  or  influence  the  elements  of  inorganic 
nature.  The  fact  of  an  organism's  possessing  life 
enables  it  to  build  up  material  into  many  notable 
forms, — oak,  eagle,  man, — which  material  aggregates 
last  until  they  are  abandoned  by  the  guiding  prin- 
ciple, when  they  more  or  less  speedily  fall  into 
decay,  or  become  resolved  into  their  elements,  until 
utilised  by  a  fresh  incarnation ;  and  hence  I  say  that 
whatever  life  is  or  is  not,  it  is  certainly  this :  it  is  a 
guiding  and  controlling  entity  which  reacts  upon 
our  world  according  to  laws  so  partially  known  that 
we  have  to  say  they  are  practically  unknown,  and 
therefore  appear  in  some  respects  mysterious.  If 
it  be  thought  that  I  mean  by  this  something  super- 
stitious, and  for  ever  inexplicable  or  unintelligible, 
I  have  no  such  meaning.  I  believe  in  the  ultimate 
intelligibility  of  the  universe,  though  our  present 
brains  may  require  considerable  improvement  be- 
fore we  can  grasp  the  deepest  things  by  their  aid ; 
but  this  matter  of  "vitality"  is  probably  not  hope- 
lessly beyond  us;  and  it  does  not  follow,  because 
we  have  no  theory  of  life  or  death  now,  that  we 
shall  be  equally  ignorant  a  century  hence. 


ii8  Life  and  Matter 

My  chief  objection  to  Professor  Haeckel's  literary 
work  is  that  he  is  dogmatic  on  such  points  as  these, 
and  would  have  people  believe,  what  doubtless  he 
believes  himself,  that  he  already  knows  the  answer 
to  a  number  of  questions  in  the  realms  of  physical 
nature  and  of  philosophy.  He  writes  in  so  forcible 
and  positive  and  determined  a  fashion,  from  the 
vantage-ground  of  scientific  knowledge,  that  he 
exerts  an  undue  influence  on  the  uncultured  among 
his  readers,  and  causes  them  to  fancy  that  only 
benighted  fools  or  credulous  dupes  can  really  dis- 
agree with  the  historical  criticisms,  the  speculative 
opinions,  and  philosophical,  or  perhaps  unphilo- 
sophical,  conjectures  thus  powerfully  set  forth. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HYPOTHESIS  AND  ANALOGIES  CONCERNING 
LIFE 

THE  view  concerning  Life  which  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  express  is  that  it  is  neither 
matter  nor  energy,  nor  even  a  function  of  matter  or 
of  energy,  but  is  something  belonging  to  a  different 
category;  that  by  some  means,  at  present  unknown, 
it  is  able  to  interact  with  the  material  world  for  a 
time,  but  that  it  can  also  exist  in  some  sense  inde- 
pendently ;  although  in  that  condition  of  existence 
it  is  by  no  means  apprehensible  by  our  senses.  It 
is  dependent  on  matter  for  its  phenomenal  appear- 
ance— for  its  manifestation  to  us  here  and  now,  and 
for  all  its  terrestrial  activities;  but  otherwise  I 
conceive  that  it  is  independent,  that  its  essential 
existence  is  continuous  and  permanent,  though  its 
interactions  with  matter  are  discontinuous  and  tem- 
porary ;  and  I  conjecture  that  it  is  subject  to  a  law 
of  evolution — that  a  linear  advance  is  open  to  it — 

119 


120  Life  and  Matter 

whether  it  be  in  its  phenomenal  or  in  its  occult 
state. 

It  may  be  well  to  indicate  what  I  mean  by  con- 
ceiving of  the  possibility  that  life  has  an  existence 
apart  from  its  material  manifestations  as  we  know 
them  at  present.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  that  such  a 
view  is  a  mere  surmise,  having  no  intelligible  mean- 
ing, and  that  it  is  merely  an  attempt  to  clutch  at 
human  immortality  in  an  emotional  and  unscientific 
spirit.  To  this,  however,  I  in  no  way  plead  guilty. 

My  ideas  about  life  may  be  quite  wrong,  but  they 
are  as  cold-blooded  and  free  from  bias  as  possible; 
moreover,  they  apply  not  to  human  life  alone,  but 
to  all  life — to  that  of  all  animals,  and  even  of  plants ; 
and  they  are  held  by  me  as  a  working  hypothesis, 
the  only  one  which  enables  me  to  fit  the  known 
facts  of  ordinary  vitality  into  a  thinkable  scheme. 
Without  it,  I  should  be  met  by  all  the  usual  puzzles : 
(i)  as  to  the  stage  at  which  existence  begins,  if  it 
can  be  thought  of  as  "beginning"  at  all ' ;  (2)  as  to 

1  I  doubt  whether  existence  can  be  "begun"  at  all,  save  as  the 
result  of  a  juxtaposition  of  elements,  or  of  a  conveyance  of  motion. 
We  can  put  things  together,  and  we  can  set  things  in  motion, — 
statics  and  kinetics, —  can  we  do  more?  Ether  can  be  strained, 
matter  can  be  moved  :  I  doubt  whether  we  see  more  than  this  hap- 
pening in  the  whole  material  universe. 


Analogies  to  Life  121 

the  nature  of  individuality,  in  the  midst  of  diversity 
of  particles,  and  the  determination  of  form  irrespec- 
tive of  variety  of  food ;  (3)  the  extraordinary  rapid- 
ity of  development,  which  results  in  the  production 
of  a  fully  endowed  individual  in  the  course  of  some 
fraction  of  a  century. 

With  it,  I  cannot  pretend  that  all  these  things 
are  thoroughly  intelligible,  but  the  lines  on  which 
an  explanation  may  be  forthcoming  seem  to  be  laid 
down :  the  notion  being  that  what  we  see  is  a  tem- 
porary apparition  or  incarnation  of  a  permanent 
entity  or  idea. 

It  is  easiest  to  explain  my  meaning  by  aid  of 
analogues, —  by  the  construction,  as  it  were,  of 
"models,"  just  as  is  the  custom  in  physics  when- 
ever a  recondite  idea  has  to  be  grasped  before  it  can 
be  properly  formulated  and  before  a  theory  is  com- 
plete. 

I  will  take  two  analogies :  one  from  politics  and 
one  from  magnetism. 

"Parliament,"  or  "the  Army,"  is  a  body  which 
consists  of  individual  members  constantly  changing, 
and  its  existence  is  not  dependent  on  their  exist- 
ence: it  pre-existed  any  particular  set  of  them,  and 


122  Life  and  Matter 

it  can  survive  a  dissolution.  Even  after  a  complete 
slaughter,  the  idea  of  the  army  would  survive,  and 
another  would  come  into  being,  to  carry  on  the 
permanent  traditions  and  life. 

Except  as  an  idea  in  some  sentient  mind,  it  could 
not  be  said  to  exist  at  all.  The  mere  individuals 
composing  it  do  not  make  it :  without  the  idea  they 
would  be  only  a  disorganised  mob.  Abstractions 
like  the  British  Constitution,  and  other  such  things, 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  any  incarnate  existence. 
These  exist  only  as  ideas. 

Parliament  exists  fundamentally  as  an  idea,  and 
it  can  be  called  into  existence  or  re-incarnated 
again.  Whether  it  is  the  same  Parliament  or  not 
after  a  general  election  is  a  question  that  may  be 
differently  answered.  It  is  not  identical,  it  may 
have  different  characteristics,  but  there  is  certainly 
a  sort  of  continuity ;  it  is  still  a  British  Parliament ; 
for  instance,  it  has  not  changed  its  character  to  that 
of  the  French  Assembly  or  the  American  Congress. 
It  is  a  permanent  entity  even  when  disembodied ; 
it  has  a  past  and  it  has  a  future ;  it  has  a  funda- 
mentally continuous  existence  though  there  are 
breaks  or  dislocations  in  its  conspicuous  activity, 


Analogies  to  Life  123 

and  though  each  incarnation  has  a  separate  identity 
or  personality  of  its  own.  It  is  larger  and  more 
comprehensive  than  any  individual  representation 
of  it;  it  may  be  said  to  have  a  "subliminal  self," 
of  which  any  septennial  period  sees  but  a  meagre 
epitome. 

Some  of  those  epitomes  are  more,  some  less, 
worthy ;  sometimes  there  appears  only  a  poor  de- 
formity or  a  feeble-minded  attempt,  sometimes  a 
strong  and  vigorous  embodiment  of  the  root  idea. 

As  to  its  technical  continuity  of  existence  and 
actual  mode  of  reproduction,  I  suppose  it  would  be 
merely  fanciful  to  liken  the  "Crown"  to  those  germ- 
cells  or  nuclei,  whose  existence  continues  without 
break,  which  serve  the  purpose  of  collecting  and 
composing  the  somatic  cells  in  due  season. 

Other  illustrations  of  the  temporary  incarnation 
of  a  permanent  idea  are  readily  furnished  from  the 
domain  of  art;  but,  after  all,  the  best  analogy  to 
life  that  I  can  at  present  think  of  is  to  be  found  in 
the  subject  of  magnetism. 

At  one  time,  it  was  possible  to  say  that  magnet- 
ism could  not  be  produced  except  by  antecedent 
magnetism;  that  there  was  no  known  way  of 


124  Life  and  Matter 

generating  it  spontaneously;  yet  that,  since  it  un- 
doubtedly occurs  in  certain  rocks  of  the  earth,  it 
must  have  come  into  existence  somehow,  at  a  date 
unknown.  It  could  also  be  said,  and  it  can  be  said 
still,  that,  given  an  initial  magnet,  any  number  of 
others  can  be  made,  without  loss  to  the  generating 
magnet.  By  influence  or  induction  exerted  by 
proximity  on  other  pieces  of  steel,  the  properties  of 
one  magnet  can  be  excited  in  any  number  of  such 
pieces, — the  amount  of  magnetism  thus  producible 
being  infinite ;  that  is,  being  strictly  without  limit, 
and  not  dependent  at  all  on  the  very  finite  strength 
of  the  original  magnet,  which  indeed  continues  un- 
abated. It  is  just  as  if  magnetism  were  not  really 
manufactured  at  all,  but  were  a  thing  called  out 
of  some  infinite  reservoir;  as  if  something  were 
brought  into  active  and  prominent  existence  from  a 
previously  dormant  state. 

And  that  indeed  is  the  fact.  The  process  of 
magnetisation,  as  conducted  with  a  steel  magnet  on 
other  pieces  of  previously  inert  steel,  in  no  case 
really  generates  new  lines  of  magnetic  force,  though 
it  appears  to  generate  them.  We  now  know 
that  the  lines  which  thus  spring  into  corporeal 


Analogies  to  Life  125 

existence,  as  it  were,  are  essentially  closed  curves  or 
loops,  which  cannot  be  generated ;  they  can  be  ex- 
panded or  enlarged  to  cover  a  wide  field,  and  they 
can  be  contracted  or  shrunk  up  into  insignificance, 
but  they  cannot  be  created,  they  must  be  pre-exist- 
ent ;  they  were  in  the  non-magnetised  steel  all  the 
time,  though  they  were  so  small  and  ill-arranged 
that  they  had  no  perceptible  effect  whatever;  they 
constituted  a  potentiality  for  magnetism ;  they 
existed  as  molecular  closed  curves  or  loops,  which, 
by  the  operation  called  magnetisation,  could,  some 
of  them,  be  opened  out  into  loops  of  finite  area  and 
spread  out  into  space,  where  they  are  called  'lines 
offeree."  They  then  constitute  the  region  called 
a  magnetic  field,  which  remains  a  seat  of  so-called 
"permanent"  magnetic  activity,  until,  by  lapse  of 
time,  excessive  heat,  or  other  circumstance,  they 
close  up  again ;  and  so  the  magnet,  as  a  magnet, 
dies.  The  magnetism  itself,  however,  has  not 
really  died;  it  has  a  perpetual  existence,  and  a 
fresh  act  of  magnetisation  can  recall  it,  or  some- 
thing indistinguishable  from  it,  into  manifest  activ- 
ity again;  so  that  it,  or  its  equivalent,  can  once 
more  interact  with  the  rest  of  material  energies,  and 


i26  Life  and  Matter 

be  dealt  with  by  physicists,  or  subserve  the  uses 
of  humanity.  Until  that  time  of  re-appearance  its 
existence  can  only  be  inferred  by  the  thought  of 
the  mathematician ;  it  is  indeed  a  matter  of  theory, 
not  necessarily  recognised  as  true  by  the  practical 
man. 

Our  present  view  is  that  the  act  of  magnetisation 
consists  in  a  re-arrangement  and  co-ordination  of 
previously  existing  magnetic  elements,  lying  dor- 
mant, so  to  speak,  in  iron  and  other  magnetic 
materials;  only  a  very  small  fraction  of  the  whole 
number  being  usually  brought  into  activity  at  any 
one  time,  and  not  necessarily  always  the  same  actual 
set.  Only  a  small  and  indiscriminate  selection  is 
made  from  all  the  molecular  loops;  and  it  can  be  a 
different  group  each  time,  or  some  elements  may  be 
different  and  some  the  same,  whenever  a  fresh  in- 
dividual or  magnet  is  brought  into  being. 

All  this  can  be  said  concerning  the  old  process  of 
magnetisation  —  the  process  as  it  was  doubtless 
familiar  to  the  unknown  discoverer  of  the  lodestone, 
to  the  ancient  users  of  the  mariner's  compass,  and 
to  Dr.  Gilbert  of  Colchester,  the  discoverer  of  the 
magnetised  condition  of  the  earth. 


Analogies  to  Life  127 

But  within  the  nineteenth  century,  a  fresh  process 
of  magnetisation  has  been  discovered,  and  this  new 
or  electrical  process  is  no  longer  obviously  depend- 
ent on  the  existence  of  antecedent  magnetism,  but 
seems  at  first  sight  to  be  a  property  freshly  or 
spontaneously  generated,  as  it  were.  The  process 
was  discovered  as  the  result  of  setting  electricity 
in  motion.  So  long  as  electricity  was  studied  in 
its  condition  at  rest  on  charged  conductors,  as  in 
the  old  science  of  electrostatics  or  frictional  electric- 
ity, it  possessed  no  magnetic  properties  whatever, 
nor  did  it  encroach  on  the  magnetic  domain :  only 
vague  similarities  in  the  phenomena  of  attraction 
and  repulsion  aroused  attention.  But  directly  elec- 
tricity was  set  in  motion,  constituting  what  is  called 
an  electric  current,  magnetic  lines  of  force  instantly 
sprang  into  being,  without  the  presence  of  any  steel 
or  iron ;  and  in  twenty  years  they  were  recognised. 
These  electrically  generated  lines  of  force  are  similar 
to  those  previously  known,  but  they  need  no  mat- 
ter to  sustain  them.  They  need  matter  to  display 
them,  but  they  themselves  exist  equally  well  in 
perfect  vacuum. 

How  did  they  manage  to  spring  into  being?    Can 


128  Life  and  Matter 

it  be  said  that  they,  too,  had  existed  previously 
in  some  dormant  condition  in  the  ether  of  space? 
That  they,  too,  were  closed  loops  opened  out,  and 
their  existence  thus  displayed,  by  the  electric  cur- 
rent? 

That  is  an  assertion  which  might  reasonably  be 
made:  it  is  not  the  only  way  of  regarding  the  mat- 
ter, however,  and  the  mode  in  which  a  magnetic 
field  originates  round  the  path  of  a  moving  charge 
— being  generated  during  the  acceleration-period 
by  a  pulse  of  radiation  which  travels  with  the  speed 
of  light;  being  maintained  during  the  steady-motion 
period  by  a  sort  of  inertia  as  if  in  accordance  with 
the  first  law  of  motion ;  and  being  destroyed  only 
by  a  return  pulse  of  re-radiation  during  a  retarda- 
tion-period when  the  moving  charge  is  stopped 
or  diverted  or  reversed, — all  this  can  hardly  be  fully 
explained  until  the  intimate  nature  of  an  electric 
charge  has  been  more  fully  worked  out ;  and  the 
subject  now  trenches  too  nearly  on  the  more  ad- 
vanced parts  of  physics  to  be  useful  any  longer  as 
an  analogue  for  general  readers. 

Indeed,  it  must  be  recollected  that  no  analogy 
will  bear  pressing  too  far.  All  that  we  are  con- 


Analogies  to  Life  129 

cerned  to  show  is  that  known  magnetic  behaviour 
exhibits  a  very  fair  analogy  to  some  aspects  of  that 
still  more  mysterious  entity  which  we  call  "life"; 
and  if  any  one  should  assert  that  all  magnetism  was 
pre-existent  in  some  ethereal  condition;  that  it 
would  never  go  out  of  essential  existence ;  but  that 
it  could  be  brought  into  relation  with  the  world  of 
matter  by  certain  acts,' — that  while  there  it  could 
operate  in  a  certain  way,  controlling  the  motion  of 
bodies,  interacting  with  forms  of  energy,  producing 
sundry  effects  for  a  time,  and  then  disappearing 
from  our  ken  to  the  immaterial  region  whence  it 
came, —  he  would  be  saying  what  no  physicist 
would  think  it  worth  while  to  object  to, —  what 
many,  indeed,  might  agree  with. 

Well,  that  is  the  kind  of  assertion  which  I  want 
to  make,  as  a  working  hypothesis,  concerning  life. 

An  acorn  has  in  itself  the  potentiality  not  of  one 
oak-tree  alone,  but  of  a  forest  of  oak-trees,  to  the 
thousandth  generation,  and  indeed  of  oak-trees 
without  end.  There  is  no  sort  of  law  of  "conserva- 
tion" here.  It  is  not  as  if  something  were  passed 
on  from  one  thing  to  another.  It  is  not  analogous 

to  energy  at  all;  it  is  analogous  to  the  magnetism 
<t 


130  Life  and  Matter 

which  can  be  excited  by  any  given  magnet ;  the 
required  energy,  in  both  cases,  being  extraneously 
supplied,  and  only  transmuted  into  the  appropriate 
form  by  the  guiding  principle  which  controls  thq 
operation. 

We  do  not  at  present  know  how  to  generate  life 
without  the  action  of  antecedent  life,  though  that 
may  be  a  discovery  lying  ready  for  us  in  the  future ; 
but  even  if  we  did,  it  would  still  be  true  (as  I  think) 
that  the  life  was  in  some  sense  pre-existent ;  that  it 
was  not  really  created  de  novo ;  that  it  was  brought 
into  actual  practical  every-day  existence  doubtless, 
but  that  it  had  pre-existed  in  some  sense  too ; 
being  called  out,  as  it  were,  from  some  great 
reservoir  or  storehouse  of  vitality,  to  which,  when 
its  earthly  career  is  ended,  it  will  return. 

Indeed,  it  cannot  in  any  proper  sense  be  said  ever 
to  have  left  that  storehouse,  though  it  has  been 
made  to  interact  with  the  world  for  a  time;  and,  if 
we  might  so  express  it,  it  may  be  thought  of  as 
carrying  back  with  it,  into  the  general  reservoir, 
any  individuality,  and  any  experience  and  training 
or  development,  which  it  can  be  thought  of  as  hav- 
ing acquired  here.  Such  a  statement  as  this  last 


Analogies  to  Life  131 

cannot  be  made  of  magnetism,  to  which  no  known 
law  of  evolution  and  progress  can  be  supposed  to 
apply;  but  of  life,  of  anything  subject  to  continu- 
ous evolution  or  linear  progress  embodied  in  the 
race,  of  any  condition  not  cyclically  determinate 
and  returning  into  itself,  but  progressing  and  ad- 
vancing— acquiring  fresh  potentialities,  fresh  pow- 
ers, fresh  beauties,  new  characteristics  such  as 
perhaps  may  never  in  the  whole  universe  have  been 
displayed  before — of  everything  which  possesses 
such  powers  as  these,  a  statement  akin  to  the  above 
may  certainly  be  made.  To  all  such  things,  when 
they  reach  a  high  enough  stage,  the  ideas  of  con- 
tinued personality,  of  memory,  of  persistent  indi- 
vidual existence,  not  only  may,  but  I  think  must, 
apply,  notwithstanding  the  admitted  return  of  the 
individual  after  each  incarnation  to  the  central 
store  from  which  it  was  differentiated  and  individ- 
ualised. 

Even  so  a  villager,  picked  out  as  a  recruit  and 
sent  to  the  seat  of  war,  may  serve  his  country,  may 
gain  experience,  acquire  a  soul  and  a  width  of  hori- 
zon such  as  he  had  not  dreamed  of;  and  when  he 
returns,  after  the  war  is  over,  may  be  merged  as 


132  Life  and  Matter 

before  in  his  native  village.  But  the  village  is  the 
richer  for  his  presence,  and  his  individuality  or 
personality  is  not  really  lost ;  though  to  the  eye  of 
the  world,  which  has  no  further  need  for  it,  it  has 
practically  ceased  to  be. 


CHAPTER  IX 

WILL  AND  GUIDANCE 

{Partially  read  to  the  Synthetic  Society  in  February,  1903] 

THE  influence  of  the  divine  on  the  human,  and 
on  the  material  world,  has  been  variously 
conceived  in  different  ages,  and  various  forms  of 
difficulty  have  been  at  different  times  felt  and  sug- 
gested; but  always  some  sort  of  analogy  between 
human  action  and  divine  action  has  had  perforce 
to  be  drawn,  in  order  to  make  the  latter  in  the  least 
intelligible  to  our  conception.  The  latest  form  of 
difficulty  is  peculiarly  deep-seated,  and  is  a  natu- 
ral outcome  of  an  age  of  physical  science.  It  con- 
sists in  denying  the  possibility  of  any  guidance  or 
control, — not  only  on  the  part  of  a  Deity,  but  on 
the  part  of  every  one  of  His  creatures.  It  consists  in 
pressing  the  laws  of  physics  to  what  may  seem  their 
logical  and  ultimate  conclusion,  in  applying  the 
conservation  of  energy  without  ruth  or  hesitation, 

133 


134  Life  and  Matter 

and  so  excluding  altogether,  as  some  have  fancied, 
the  possibility  of  free-will  action,  of  guidance,  of 
the  self-determined  action  of  mind  or  living  things 
upon  matter.  The  appearance  of  control  has  ac- 
cordingly been  considered  illusory,  and  has  been 
replaced  by  a  doctrine  of  pure  mechanism,  envelop- 
ing living  things  as  well  as  inorganic  nature. 

And  those  who  for  any  reason  have  felt  disin- 
clined or  unable  to  acquiesce  in  this  exclusion  of 
non-mechanical  agencies,  whether  it  be  by  reason 
of  faith  and  instinct  or  by  reason  of  direct  experi- 
ence and  sensation  to  the  contrary,  have  thought  it 
necessary  of  late  years  to  seek  to  undermine  the 
foundation  of  physics,  and  to  show  that  its  much- 
vaunted  laws  rest  upon  a  hollow  basis,  that  their 
exactitude  is  illusory, —  that  the  conservation  of 
energy,  for  instance,  has  been  too  rapid  an  induc- 
tion, that  there  may  be  ways  of  eluding  many 
physical  laws  and  of  avoiding  submission  to  their 
sovereign  sway. 

By  this  sacrifice  it  has  been  thought  that  the 
eliminated  guidance  and  control  can  philosophically 
be  reintroduced. 

This,  I  gather,  may  have  been  the  chief  motive  of 


Will  and  Guidance  135 

a  critical  examination  of  the  foundations  of  physics 
by  an  American  author,  J.  B.  Stallo,  in  a  little  book 
called  the  Concepts  of  Physics.  But  the  worst  of 
that  book  was  that  Judge  Stallo  was  not  fully 
familiar  with  the  teachings  of  the  great  physicists ; 
he  appears  to  have  collected  his  information  from 
popular  writings,  where  the  doctrines  were  very  im- 
perfectly laid  down;  so  that  part  of  his  book  is 
occupied  in  demolishing  constructions  of  straw,  un- 
recognisable by  professed  physicists  except  as  cari- 
catures at  which  they  also  might  be  willing  to  heave 
an  occasional  missile. 

The  armoury  pressed  into  the  service  of  Professor 
James  Ward's  not  wholly  dissimilar  attack  on 
physics  is  of  heavy  calibre,  and  his  criticism  cannot 
in  general  be  ignored  as  based  upon  inadequate 
acquaintance  with  the  principles  under  discussion  ; 
but  still  his  Gifford  lectures  raise  an  antithesis  or 
antagonism  between  the  fundamental  laws  of  me- 
chanics and  the  possibility  of  any  intervention, 
whether  human  or  divine. 

If  this  antagonism  is  substantial  it  is  serious;  for 
natural  philosophers  will  not  be  willing  to  concede 
fundamental  inaccuracy  or  uncertainty  about  their 


136  Life  and  Matter 

recognised  and  long-established  laws  of  motion, 
when  applied  to  ordinary  matter;  nor  will  they  be 
prepared  to  tolerate  any  the  least  departure  from 
the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  when  all 
forms  of  energy  are  taken  into  account.  Hence,  if 
guidance  and  control  can  be  admitted  into  the 
scheme  by  no  means  short  of  undermining  and  re- 
futing those  laws,  there  may  be  every  expectation 
that  the  attitude  of  scientific  men  will  be  peren- 
nially hostile  to  the  idea  of  guidance  or  control,  and 
so  to  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  and  to  many  another 
practical  outcome  of  religious  belief.  It  becomes, 
therefore,  an  important  question  to  consider  whether 
it  is  true  that  life  or  mind  is  incompetent  to  dis- 
arrange or  interfere  with  matter  at  all,  except  as 
itself  an  automatic  part  of  the  machine, — whether, 
in  fact,  it  is  merely  an  ornamental  appendage  or 
phantasmal  accessory  of  the  working  parts. 

Now  experience — the  same  kind  of  experience  as 
gave  us  our  scheme  of  mechanics — shows  us  that  to 
all  appearance  live  animals  certainly  can  direct  and 
control  mechanical  energies  to  bring  about  desired 
and  preconceived  results;  and  that  man  can  defi- 
nitely will  that  those  results  shall  occur.  The  way 


Will  and  Guidance  137 

the  energy  is  provided  is  understood,  and  its  mode 
of  application  is  fairly  understood ;  what  is  not 
understood  is  the  way  its  activity  is  determined. 
Undoubtedly  our  body  is  material  and  can  act  on 
other  matter;  and  the  energy  of  its  operations  is 
derived  from  food,  like  any  other  self-propelled  and 
fuel-fed  mechanism ;  but  mechanism  is  usually  con- 
trolled by  an  attendant.  The  question  is  whether 
our  will  or  mind  or  life  can  direct  our  body's  energy 
along  certain  channels  to  attain  desired  ends,  or 
whether — as  in  a  motor-car  with  an  automaton 
driver — the  end  and  aim  of  all  activity  is  wholly 
determined  by  mechanical  causes.  And  a  further 
question  concerns  the  mode  whereby  vital  control, 
if  any,  is  achieved. 

Answers  that  might  be  hazarded  are: 

(a)  That  life  is  itself  a  latent  store  of  energy,  and 
achieves  its  results  by  imparting  to  matter  energy 
that  would  not  otherwise  be  in  evidence :  in  which 
case  life  would  be  a  part  of  the  machine,  and  as 
truly  mechanical  as  all  the  rest. 

Experiment  lends  no  support  to  this  view  of  the 
relation  between  life  and  energy,  and  I  hold  that  it 
is  false ;  because  the  essential  property  of  energy  is 


Life  and  Matter 

that  it  can  transform  itself  into  other  forms,  remain- 
ing constant  in  quantity,  whereas  life  does  not  add 
to  the  stock  of  any  known  form  of  energy,  nor  does 
death  affect  the  sum  of  energy  in  any  known  way. 

(/>)  That  life  is  something  outside  the  scheme  of 
mechanics  -outside  the  categories  of  matter  and 
energy ;  though  it  can  nevertheless  control  or  direct 
material  forces — timing  them  and  determining  their 
place  of  application, — subject  always  to  the  laws  of 
energy  and  all  other  mechanical  laws;  supplement- 
ing or  accompanying  these  laws,  therefore,  but  con- 
tradicting or  traversing  them  no  whit. 

This  second  answer  I  hold  to  be  true ;  but  in 
order  to  admit  its  truth  we  must  recognise  that 
force  can  be  exerted  and  energy  directed  by  suit- 
able adjustment  of  existing  energy,  without  any  in- 
troduction of  energy  from  without;  in  other  words, 
that  the  euoixv  of  operations  automatically  «join;j 

v* .  i  .OO 

on  in  any  active  region  of  the  universe — any  region 
where  transformation  and  transference  of  energy  are 
continuously  occurring,  whether  life  be  present  or 
not --can  bo  guided  along  paths  that  it  would  not 
automatically  have  taken,  and  can  be  directed  so  as 
to  produce  crYects  that  would  no:  otherwise  have 
csxurux! ;  and  this  without  anv  breakage  or  sus'jen 


Will  and  Guidance  139 

sion  of  the  laws  of  dynamics,  and  in  full  correspond- 
ence with  both  the  conservation  of  energy  and  the 
conservation  of  momentum. 

That  is  where  I  part  company  with  Professor 
James  Ward  in  the  second  volume  of  Naturalism 
and  Agnosticism  ;  with  whom,  nevertheless,  on  many 
broad  issues  I  find  myself  in  fair  agreement.  Those 
who  find  a  real  antinomy  between  "mechanism  and 
morals"  must  either  throw  overboard  the  possibility 
of  interference  or  guidance  or  willed  action  alto- 
gether, which  is  one  alternative,  or  must  assume 
that  the  laws  of  physics  are  only  approximate  and 
untrustworthy,  which  is  the  other  alternative — the 
alternative  apparently  favoured  by  Professor  James 
Ward.  I  wish  to  argue  that  neither  of  these  alter- 
natives is  necessary,  and  that  there  is  a  third  or 
middle  course  of  proverbial  safety:  all  that  is  neces- 
sary is  to  realise  and  admit  that  the  laws  of  physical 
science  are  incomplete,  when  regarded  as  a  formula- 
tion and  philosophical  summary  of  the  universe  in 
general.  No  Laplacian  calculator  can  be  supplied 
with  all  the  data. 

In  a  stagnant  and  inactive  world  life  would  ad* 
mittedly  be  powerless:  it  could  only  make  dry  bones 


140  Life  and  Matter 

stir  in  such  a  world  if  itself  were  a  form  of  energy ; 
I  do  not  suppose  for  a  moment  that  it  could 
be  incarnated  in  such  a  world;  it  is  only  potent 
where  inorganic  energy  is  mechanically  "available  " 
— to  use  Lord  Kelvin's  term, — that  is  to  say,  is 
either  potentially  or  actually  in  process  of  trans- 
fer and  transformation.  In  others  words,  life  can 
generate  no  trace  of  energy ;  it  can  only  guide  its 
transmutations. 

It  has  gradually  dawned  upon  me  that  the  reason 
why  philosophers  who  are  well  acquainted  with 
physical  or  dynamical  science  are  apt  to  fall  into 
the  error  of  supposing  that  mental  and  vital  inter- 
ference with  the  material  world  is  impossible,  in 
spite  of  their  clamorous  experience  to  the  contrary 
(or  else,  on  the  strength  of  that  experience,  to  con- 
ceive that  there  is  something  the  matter  with  the 
formulation  of  physical  and  dynamical  laws),  is  be- 
cause all  such  interference  is  naturally  and  neces- 
sarily excluded  from  scientific  methods  and  treatises. 

In  pure  mechanics,  "force  "  is  treated  as  a  func- 
tion of  configuration  and  momentum  :  the  positions, 
the  velocities,  and  the  accelerations  of  a  conserva- 
tive system  depend  solely  on  each  other,  on  initial 


Will  and  Guidance  141 

conditions,  and  on  mass ;  or,  if  we  choose  so  to  ex- 
press it,  the  co-ordinates,  the  momenta,  and  the 
kinetic  energies  of  the  parts  of  any  dynamical  sys- 
tem whatever  are  all  functions  of  time  and  of  each 
other,  and  of  nothing  else.  In  other  words,  we 
have  to  deal,  in  this  mode  of  regarding  things,  with 
a  definite  and  completely  determinate  world,  to 
which  prediction  may  confidently  be  applied. 

But  this  determinateness  is  gotten  by  refusing  to 
contemplate  anything  outside  a  certain  scheme :  it 
is  an  internal  truth  within  the  assigned  boundaries, 
and  is  quite  consistent  with  psychical  interference 
and  indeterminateness,  as  soon  as  those  boundaries 
are  ignored ;  determinateness  is  not  part  of  the 
essence  of  dynamical  doctrine,  it  is  arrived  at  by  the 
tacit  assumption  that  no  undynamical  or  hyper- 
dynamical  agencies  exist :  in  short,  by  that  process 
of  abstraction  which  is  invariably  necessary  for  sim- 
plicity, and  indeed  for  possibility,  of  methodical 
human  treatment.  Every  one  engaged  in  scientific 
research  is  aware  that  if  exuberant  charwomen,  or 
intelligent  but  mischievous  students  (who  for  a 
moment  may  be  taken  to  represent  life  and  mind 
respectively),  are  admitted  into  a  laboratory  and  full 


142  Life  and  Matter 

scope  given  to  their  activities,  the  scientific  results 
—though  still,  no  doubt,  in  some  strained  sense, 
concordant  with  law  and  order — are  apt  to  be  too 
complicated  for  investigation ;  wherefore  there  is 
usually  an  endeavour  to  exclude  these  incalculable 
influences,  and  to  make  a  tacit  assumption  that  they 
have  not  been  let  in. 

There  is  a  similar  tacit  assumption  in  treatises  on 
physics  and  chemistry:  viz.,  that  the  laws  of  auto- 
matic nature  shall  be  allowed  unrestricted  and  un- 
aided play;  that  nothing  shall  intervene  in  any 
operation  from  start  to  finish  save  mechanical  se- 
quent and  antecedent ;  that  it  is  permissible,  in  fact, 
to  exercise  abstraction,  as  usual,  to  the  exclusion  of 
agents  not  necessarily  connected  with  the  problem, 
and  not  contemplated  by  the  equations. 

In  text-books  of  dynamics  and  in  treatises  of 
natural  philosophy  that  is  a  perfectly  legitimate 
procedure  J ;  but  when,  later  on,  we  come  to  philoso- 
phise, and  to  deal  with  the  universe  as  a  whole,  we 
must  forego  the  ingrained  habit  of  abstraction,  and 
must  remember  that  for  a  complete  treatment  notldng 

1  It  is  on  this  basis  that  there  is  a  science  of  rigid  dynamics,  with 
elasticity  and  fluidity  excluded  ;  and  thus  also  can  there  be  a  hydro- 
dynamics in  which  the  consequences  of  viscosity  are  ignored. 


Will  and  Guidance  143 

must  permanently  be  ignored.  So  if  life  and  mind 
and  will,  and  curiosity  and  mischief  and  folly,  and 
greed  and  fraud  and  malice,  and  a  whole  catalogue 
of  attributes  and  things  not  contemplated  in  natural 
philosophy — if  these  are  known  to  have  any  real 
existence  in  the  larger  world  of  total  experience, 
and  if  there  is  any  reason  to  believe  that  any  one  of 
them  may  have  had  some  influence  in  determining 
an  observed  result,  then  it  is  foolish  to  exclude 
these  things  from  philosophic  consideration  on  the 
ground  that  they  are  out  of  place  in  the  realm  of 
natural  philosophy,  that  they  are  not  allowed  for 
in  its  scheme,  and  therefore  cannot  possibly  be  sup- 
posed capable  of  exerting  any  effective  interference, 
any  real  guidance  or  control. 

My  contention  then  is — and  in  this  contention  I 
am  practically  speaking  for  my  brother  physicists — • 
that  whereas  life  or  mind  can  neither  generate 
energy  nor  directly  exert  force,  yet  it  can  cause 
matter  to  exert  force  on  matter,  and  so  can  exercise 
guidance  and  control :  it  can  so  prepare  any  scene 
of  activity,  by  arranging  the  position  of  existing 
material,  and  timing  the  liberation  of  existing 
energy,  as  to  produce  results  concordant  with  an 


144  Life  and  Matter 

idea  or  scheme  or  intention :  it  can,  in  short,  "aim" 
and  "fire." 

Guidance  of  matter  can  be  effected  by  a  passive 
exertion  of  force  without  doing  work ;  as  a  quiescent 
rail  can  guide  a  train  to  its  destination,  provided  an 
active  engine  propels  it.  But  the  analogy  of  the 
rail  must  not  be  pressed:  the  rail  "guides"  by  ex- 
erting force  perpendicular  to  the  direction  of 
motion ;  it  does  no  work  but  it  sustains  an  equal 
opposite  reaction.1  The  guidance  exercised  by  life 
or  mind  is  managed  in  an  unknown  but  certainly 
different  fashion:  "determination"  can  sustain  no 
reaction — if  it  could  it  would  be  a  straightforward 
mechanical  agent,  but  it  can  utilise  the  mechanical 

1  It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  the  distinction  between  "  force"  and 
"energy."  These  terms  have  been  so  popularly  confused  that  it 
may  be  difficult  always  to  discriminate  them,  but  in  physics  they  are 
absolutely  discriminated.  We  have  a  direct  sense  of  "  force"  in  our 
muscles,  whether  they  be  moving  or  at  rest.  A  force  in  motion  is  a 
"power";  it  "does  work"  and  transfers  energy  from  one  body  to 
another,  which  is  commonly,  though  incorrectly,  spoken  of  as  "  gen- 
erating" energy.  But  a  force  at  rest — a  mere  statical  stress,  like 
that  exerted  by  a  pillar  or  a  watershed — does  no  work,  and  "  gener- 
ates "  or  transfers  no  energy  ;  yet  the  one  sustains  a  roof  which 
would  otherwise  fall,  thereby  screening  a  portion  of  ground  from 
vegetation  ;  while  the  other  deflects  a  rain-drop  into  the  Danube  or 
the  Rhine.  This  latter  is  the  kind  of  force  which  constrains  a  stone 
to  revolve  in  a  circle  instead  of  a  straight  line  ;  a  force  like  that  of  a 
groove  or  slot  or  channel  or  "  guide." 


Will  and  Guidance  145 

properties  both  of  rail  and  of  engine ;  it  arranged  for 
the  rail  to  be  placed  in  position  so  that  the  lateral 
force  thereby  exerted  should  guide  all  future  trains 
to  a  desired  destination,  and  it  further  took  steps  to 
design  and  compose  locomotives  of  sufficient  power, 
and  to  start  them  at  a  prearranged  time.  It  "em- 
ploys "  mechanical  stress  as  a  capitalist  employs  a 
labourer, — not  doing  anything  itself,  but  directing 
the  operations.  It  is  impossible  to  explain  all  this 
fully  by  the  laws  of  mechanics  alone,  that  is  to  say, 
no  mechanical  analysis  can  be  complete  and  all- 
embracing,  though  the  whole  procedure  is  fully  sub- 
ject to  those  laws. 

To  every  force  there  is  an  equal  opposite  force  or 
reaction,  and  a  reaction  may  be  against  a  live  body, 
but  it  is  never  suspected  of  being  against  the  ab- 
straction, life  or  mind — that  would  indeed  be  en- 
larging the  scope  of  mechanics! — the  reaction  is 
always  against  some  other  body.  All  stresses,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  occur  in  the  ether;  and  they  all  have 
a  material  terminus  at  each  end  (or,  in  exceptional 
cases,  a  wave-front  or  some  other  recondite  ethereal 
equivalent);  that  is  to  say,  something  possessing 
inertia;  but  the  timed  or  opportune  existence  of  a 


146  Life  and  Matter 

particular  stress  may  be  the  result  of  organisation 
and  control.  Mechanical  operations  can  be  thus 
dominated  by  intelligence  and  purpose.  When  a 
stone  is  rolling  over  a  cliff,  it  is  all  the  same  to 
"energy  "  whether  it  fall  on  point  A  or  point  B  of 
the  beach.  But  at  A  it  shall  merely  dent  the  sand, 
whereas  at  B  it  shall  strike  a  detonator  and  explode 
a  mine.  Scribbling  on  a  piece  of  paper  results  in  a 
certain  distribution  of  fluid  and  production  of  a 
modicum  of  heat :  so  far  as  energy  is  concerned  it 
is  the  same  whether  we  sign  Andrew  Carnegie  or 
Alexander  Coppersmith,  yet  the  one  effort  may 
land  us  in  twelve  months'  imprisonment  or  may 
build  a  library,  according  to  circumstances,  while 
the  other  achieves  no  result  at  all.  John  Stuart 
Mill  used  to  say  that  our  sole  power  over  nature 
was  to  move  things ;  but,  strictly  speaking,  we  cannot 
do  even  that :  we  can  only  arrange  that  things  shall 
move  each  other,  and  can  determine  by  suitably 
preconceived  plans  the  kind  and  direction  of  the 
motion  that  shall  ensue  at  a  given  time  and  place, 
provided  always  that  we  include  in  this  category  of 
"things  "  our  undoubtedly  material  bodies,  muscles, 
and  nerves. 


Will  and  Guidance  H7 

But  here  is  just  the  puzzle :  at  what  point  does 
will  or  determination  enter  into  the  scheme?  Con- 
template a  brain-cell,  whence  originates  a  certain 
nerve-process  whereby  energy  is  liberated  with  some 
resultant  effect;  what  pulled  the  detent  in  that  cell 
which  started  the  impulse?  No  doubt  some  chemi- 
cal process:  combination  or  dissociation,  something 
atomic,  occurred;  but  what  made  it  occur  just  then 
and  in  that  way? 

I  answer,  Not  anything  that  we  as  yet  understand, 
but  apparently  the  same  sort  of  prearrangement 
that  determined  whether  the  stone  from  the  cliff 
should  fall  on  point  A  or  point  B;  the  same  sort  of 
process  that  guided  the  pen  to  make  legible  and 
effective  writing  instead  of  illegible  and  ineffective 
scrawls;  the  same  kind  of  control  that  determines 
when  and  where  a  trigger  shall  be  pulled  so  as  to 
secure  the  anticipated  slaughter  of  a  bird.  So  far 
as  energy  is  concerned,  the  explosion  and  the 
trigger-pulling  are  the  same  identical  operations, 
whether  the  aim  be  exact  or  random.  It  is  intelli- 
gence which  directs;  it  is  physical  energy  which  is 
directed  and  controlled  and  produces  the  result  in 
time  and  space. 


148  Life  and  Matter 

It  will  be  said  some  energy  is  needed  to  pull  a 
hair-trigger,  to  open  the  throttle-valve  of  an  engine, 
to  press  the  button  which  shall  shatter  a  rock. 
Granted :  but  the  work-concomitants  of  that  energy 
are  all  familiar,  and  equally  present  whether  it  be 
arranged  so  as  to  produce  any  predetermined  effect 
or  not.  The  opening  of  the  throttle-valve,  for  in- 
stance, demands  just  the  same  exertion,  and  results 
in  just  the  same  imperceptible  transformation  of 
fully-accounted-for  energy,  whether  it  be  used  to 
start  a  train  in  accordance  with  a  time-table  and  the 
guard's  whistle,  or  whether  it  be  pushed  over,  as  if 
by  the  wind,  at  random.  The  shouting  of  an  order 
to  a  troop  demands  vocal  energy  and  produces  its 
due  equivalent  of  sound ;  but  the  intelligibility  of 
the  order  is  something  superadded,  and  its  result 
may  be  to  make  not  sound  or  heat  alone,  but 
history. 

Energy  must  be  available  for  the  performance  of 
any  physical  operation,  but  the  energy  is  independ- 
ent of  the  determination  or  arrangement.  Guid- 
ance and  control  are  not  forms  of  energy,  nor  need 
they  be  themselves  phantom  modes  of  force :  their 
superposition  upon  the  scheme  of  physics  need  per- 


Will  and  Guidance  149 

turb  physical  and  mechanical  laws  no  whit,  and  yet 
it  may  profoundly  affect  the  consequences  resulting 
from  those  same  laws.  The  whole  effort  of  civil- 
isation would  be  futile  if  we  could  not  guide  the 
powers  of  nature.  The  powers  are  there,  else  we 
should  be  helpless;  but  life  and  mind  are  outside 
those  powers,  and,  by  prearranging  their  field  of 
action,  can  direct  them  along  an  organised  course. 

And  this  same  life  or  mind,  as  we  know  it,  is 
accessible  to  petition,  to  affection,  to  pity,  to  a 
multitude  of  non-physical  influences;  and  hence, 
indirectly,  the  little  plot  of  physical  universe  which 
is  now  our  temporary  home  has  become  amenable 
to  truly  spiritual  control. 

I  lay  stress  upon  a  study  of  the  nature  and  mode 
of  human  action  of  the  interfering  or  guiding  kind, 
because  by  that  study  we  must  be  led  if  we  are  to 
form  any  intelligent  conception  of  divine  action. 
True,  it  might  be  feasible  to  admit  divine  agency 
and  yet  to  deny  the  possibility  of  any  human  power 
of  the  same  kind, — though  that  would  be  a  nebulous 
and  at  least  inconclusive  procedure;  but  if  once  we 
are  constrained  to  admit  the  existence  and  reality 


150  Life  and  Matter 

of  human  guidance  and  control,  superposed  upon 
the  physical  scheme,  we  cannot  deny  the  possibility 
of  such  power  and  action  to  any  higher  being,  or 
even  to  any  totality  of  Mind  of  which  ours  is  a  part. 
I  do  not  see  how  the  function  claimed  can  be  re- 
sented, except  by  those  who  deny  "life"  to  be  any- 
thing at  all.  If  it  exists,  if  it  is  not  mere  illusion,  it 
appears  to  me  to  be  something  whose  full  signifi- 
cance lies  in  another  scheme  of  things,  but  which 
touches  and  interacts  with  this  material  universe  in 
a  certain  way,  building  its  particles  into  notable 
configurations  for  a  time — without  confounding  any 
physical  laws:  and  then  evaporating  whence  it 
came.  This  language  is  vague  and  figurative  un- 
doubtedly, but,  I  contend,  appropriately  so,  for  we 
have  not  yet  a  theory  of  life  —we  have  not  even  a 
theory  of  the  essential  nature  of  gravitation;  dis- 
coveries are  waiting  to  be  made  in  this  region,  and 
it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  we  are  already  in  pos- 
session of  all  the  data.  We  can  wait ;  but  mean- 
while we  need  not  pretend  that,  because  we  do  not 
understand  them,  therefore  life  and  will  can  accom- 
plish nothing;  we  need  not  imagine  that  "life" 
with  its  higher  developments  and  still  latent  powers 


Will  and  Guidance  151 

—is  an  impotent  nonentity.  The  philosophic  atti- 
tude, surely,  is  to  observe  and  recognise  its  effects, 
both  what  it  can  and  what  it  cannot  achieve,  and  to 
realise  that  our  present  knowledge  of  it  is  extremely 
partial  and  incomplete. 

NOTE  ON  FREE  WILL  AND  FOREKNOWLEDGE 

In  the  above  chapter  I  must  not  be  understood 
as  pretending  to  settle  the  thorny  question  of  a  re- 
conciliation between  freedom  of  choice  and  prede- 
termination or  prevision.  All  I  there  contend  for  is 
that  no  mechanical  or  scientific  determinism,  subject 
to  special  conditions  in  a  limited  region,  can  be  used 
to  contradict  freedom  of  the  will,  under  generalised 
conditions,  in  the  universe  as  a  whole. 

Nevertheless  there  are  things  which  may  perhaps 
be  usefully  said,  even  on  the  larger  and  much-worn 
topic  of  the  present  note.  If  we  still  endeavour  to 
learn  as  much  as  possible  from  human  analogies,  ex- 
amples are  easy : 

An  architect  can  draw  in  detail  a  building  that  is 
to  be ;  the  dwellers  in  a  valley  can  be  warned  to 
evacuate  their  homesteads  because  a  city  has  deter- 
mined that  a  lake  shall  exist  where  none  existed 


152  Life  and  Matter 

before.  Doubtless  the  city  is  free  to  change  its 
mind,  but  it  is  not  expected  to ;  and  all  predictions 
are  understood  to  be  made  subject  to  the  absence  of 
disturbing,  i.  e.,  unforeseen,  causes.  Even  the  pre- 
diction of  an  eclipse  is  not  free  from  a  remote  un- 
certainty, and  in  the  case  of  the  return  of  meteoric 
showers  and  comets  the  element  of  contingency  is 
not  even  remote. 

But  it  will  be  said  that  to  higher  and  superhu- 
man knowledge  all  possible  contingencies  would  be 
known  and  recognised  as  part  of  the  data.  That  is 
quite  possibly,  though  not  quite  certainly,  true: 
and  there  comes  the  real  difficulty  of  reconciling  ab- 
solute prediction  of  events  with  real  freedom  of  the 
actors  in  the  drama.  I  anticipate  that  a  complete 
solution  of  the  problem  must  involve  a  treatment  of 
the  subject  of  time,  and  a  recognition  that  "time," 
as  it  appears  to  us,  is  really  part  of  our  human  limi- 
tations. We  all  realise  that  "the  past  "  is  in  some 
sense  not  non-existent  but  only  past ;  we  may 
readily  surmise  that  "the  future"  is  similarly  in 
some  sense  existent,  only  that  we  have  not  yet 
arrived  at  it;  and  our  links  with  the  future  are  less 
understood.  That  a  seer  in  a  moment  of  clairvoy- 


Will  and  Guidance  153 

ance  may  catch  a  glimpse  of  futurity — some  partial 
picture  of  what  perhaps  exists  even  now  in  the  fore- 
thought of  some  higher  mind — is  not  inconceivable. 
It  may  be,  after  all,  only  an  unconscious  and  inspired 
inference  from  the  present,  on  an  enlarged  and  ex- 
ceptional scale ;  and  it  is  a  matter  for  straightforward 
investigation  whether  such  prevision  ever  occurs. 

The  following  article,  on  the  general  subject  of 
"Free  Will  and  Determinism,"  reprinted  by  per- 
mission from  the  Contemporary  Review  for  1904, 
may  conveniently  be  here  reproduced : 

"The  conflict  between  Free  Will  and  Determinism 
depends  on  a  question  of  boundaries.  We  occa- 
sionally ignore  the  fact  that  there  must  be  a  subjec- 
tive partition  in  the  universe  separating  the  region 
of  which  we  have  some  inkling  of  knowledge  from 
the  region  of  which  we  have  absolutely  none;  we 
are  apt  to  regard  the  portion  on  our  side  as  if  it 
were  the  whole,  and  to  debate  whether  it  must  or 
must  not  be  regarded  as  self-determined.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  any  partitioned-off  region  is  in  gen- 
eral not  completely  self-determined,  since  it  is  liable 
to  be  acted  upon  by  influences  from  the  other  side 
of  the  partition.  If  the  far  side  of  the  boundary  is 
ignored,  then  an  observer  on  the  near  side  will  con- 
clude that  things  really  initiate  their  own  motion 
and  act  without  stimulation  or  motive,  in  some 


154  Life  and  Matter 

cases,  whereas  the  fact  is  that  no  act  is  performed 
without  stimulus  or  motive;  even  irrational  acts  are 
caused  by  something,  and  so  also  are  rational  acts. 
Madness  and  delirium  are  natural  phenomena  amen- 
able to  law. 

"But  in  actual  life  we  are  living  on  one  side  of  a 
boundary,  and  are  aware  of  things  on  one  side  only; 
the  things  on  this  side  appear  to  us  to  constitute  the 
whole  universe,  since  they  are  all  of  which  we  have 
any  knowledge,  either  through  our  senses  or  in  other 
ways.  Hence  we  are  subject  to  certain  illusions, 
and  feel  certain  difficulties :  the  illusion  of  unstimu- 
lated  and  unmotived  freedom  of  action,  and  the 
difficulty  of  reconciling  this  with  the  felt  necessity 
for  general  determinism  and  causation. 

"If  we  speak  in  terms  of  the  part  of  the  universe 
that  we  know  and  have  to  do  with,  we  find  free 
agencies  rampant  among  organic  life;  so  that  "free- 
dom of  action"  is  a  definite  and  real  experience,  and 
for  practical  convenience  is  so  expressed.  But  if  we 
could  seize  the  entirety  of  things  and  perceive  what 
was  occurring  beyond  the  range  of  our  limited  con- 
ceptions we  should  realise  that  the  whole  was  welded 
together,  and  that  influences  were  coming  through 
which  produced  the  effects  that  we  observe. 

"Those  philosophers,  if  there  are  any,  who  assert 
that  we  are  wholly  chained,  bound,  and  controlled 
by  the  circumstances  of  that  part  of  the  universe  of 
which  we  are  directly  aware — that  we  are  the  slaves 
of  our  environment  and  must  act  as  we  are  com- 
pelled by  forces  emanating  from  things  on  our  side 
of  the  boundary  alone, — those  philosophers  err. 


Will  and  Guidance  155 

"This  kind  of  determinism  is  false;  and  the  re- 
action against  it  has  led  other  philosophers  to  assert 
that  we  are  lawlessly  free,  and  able  to  initiate  any 
action  without  motive  or  cause, — that  each  individ- 
ual is  a  capricious  and  chaotic  entity,  not  part  of  a 
cosmos  at  all ! 

"It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  one  has  clearly 
and  actually  maintained  either  of  these  theses  in  all 
its  crudity;  but  there  are  many  who  vigorously  and 
cheaply  deny  one  or  other  of  them,  and  in  so  deny- 
ing the  one  conceive  that  they  are  maintaining  the 
other.  Both  the  above  theses  are  false;  yet  Free 
Will  and  Determinism  are  both  true,  and  in  a  com- 
pletely known  universe  would  cease  to  be  contra- 
dictories. 

"The  reconciliation  between  opposing  views  lies 
in  realising  that  the  universe  of  which  we  have  a 
kind  of  knowledge  is  but  a  portion  or  an  aspect  of 
the  whole. 

"We  are  free,  and  we  are  controlled.  We  are 
free,  in  so  far  as  our  sensible  surroundings  and  im- 
mediate environment  are  concerned ;  that  is,  we  are 
free  for  all  practical  purposes,  and  can  choose  be- 
tween alternatives  as  they  present  themselves.  We 
are  controlled,  as  being  intrinsic  parts  of  an  entire 
cosmos  suffused  with  law  and  order. 

"No  scheme  of  science  based  on  knowledge  of  our 
environment  can  confidently  predict  our  actions, 
nor  the  actions  of  any  sufficiently  intelligent  live 
creature.  For  "mind  "  and  "will  "  have  their  roots 
on  the  other  side  of  the  'partition,  and  that  which 
we  perceive  of  them  is  but  a  fraction  of  the  whole. 


156  Life  and  Matter 

Nevertheless,  the  more  developed  and  consistent 
and  harmonious  our  character  becomes,  the  less 
liable  is  it  to  random  outbreaks,  and  the  more  cer- 
tainly can  we  be  depended  on.  We  thus,  even 
now,  can  exhibit  some  approximation  to  the  highest 
state — that  conscious  unison  with  the  entire  scheme 
of  existence  which  is  identical  with  perfect  freedom. 
"If  we  could  grasp  the  totality  of  things  we 
should  realise  that  everything  was  ordered  and 
definite,  linked  up  with  everything  else  in  a  chain  of 
causation,  and  that  nothing  was  capricious  and  un- 
certain and  uncontrolled.  The  totality  of  things  is, 
however,  and  must  remain,  beyond  our  grasp  ;  hence 
the  actual  working  of  the  process,  the  nature  of  the 
links,  the  causes  which  create  our  determinations, 
are  frequently  unknown.  And  since  it  is  necessary 
for  practical  purposes  to  treat  what  is  utterly  be- 
yond our  ken  as  if  it  were  non-existent,  it  becomes 
easily  possible  to  fall  into  the  erroneous  habit  of 
conceiving  the  transcendental  region  to  be  com- 
pletely inoperative." 


CHAPTER   X 

FURTHER  SPECULATION  AS  TO  THE  ORIGIN 
AND  NATURE  OF  LIFE  ' 

Preliminary  Remarks  on  Recent  Views  in  Chemistry 

IT  is  a  fact  extremely  familiar  to  chemists  that 
the  groupings  possible  to  atoms  of  carbon  are 
exceptionally  numerous  and  complicated,  each 
carbon  atom  having  the  power  of  linking  itself  with 
others  to  an  extraordinary  extent,  so  that  it  is  no 
exceptional  thing  to  find  a  substance  which  con- 
tains twenty  or  thirty  atoms  of  carbon  as  well  as 
other  elements  linked  together  in  its  molecule  in  a 
perfectly  definite  way,  the  molecule  being  still 
classifiable  as  that  of  a  definite  chemical  compound. 
But  there  are  also  some  non-elementary  bodies 
which,  although  they  are  chemically  complete  and 
satisfied,  retain  a  considerable  vestige  of  power  to 

1  An  article  reprinted  from  the  North  American  Review  for  May, 
1905. 

157- 


158  Life  and  Matter 

link  their  molecules  together  so  as  to  make  a  com- 
plex and  massive  compound  molecule;  and  these 
are  able  not  only  to  link  similar  molecules  into  a 
more  or  less  indefinite  chain,  but  to  unite  and  in- 
clude the  saturated  molecules  of  many  other  sub- 
stances also  into  the  unwieldy  aggregate. 

Of  the  non-elementary  bodies  possessing  this 
property,  water  appears  to  be  one  of  the  chief ;  for 
there  is  evidence  to  show  that  the  ordinary  H2O 
molecule  of  water,  although  it  may  be  properly 
spoken  of  as  a  saturated  or  satisfied  compound,  sel- 
dom exists  in  the  simple  isolated  shape  depicted  by 
this  formula,  but  rather  that  a  great  number  of  such 
simple  molecules  attach  themselves  to  each  other 
by  what  is  called  their  residual  or  outstanding 
affinity,  and  build  themselves  up  into  a  complex 
aggregate. 

The  doctrine  of  residual  affinity  has  been  long 
advocated  by  Armstrong;  and  the  present  writer 
has  recently  shown  that  it  is  a  necessary  conse- 
quence of  the  electrical  theory  of  chemical  affinity,1 
and  that  the  structure  of  the  resulting  groupings, 
or  compound  aggregates,  may  be  partially  studied 
1  See  Nature,  vol.  Ixx.,  p.  176,  June  23,  1904. 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        159 

by  means  of  floating  magnets,  somewhat  after  the 
manner  of  Alfred  Mayer.1 

It  may  be  well  here  to  explain  to  students  that 
one  of  the  lines  of  argument  which  lead  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  water  molecule,  as  it  ordinarily 
exists,  is  really  complex  and  massive,  is  based  upon 
measurements  of  the  Faraday  dielectric  constant 
for  water;  for  this  constant,  or  "specific  inductive 
capacity,"  is  found  to  be  very  large,  something  like 
fifty  times  that  of  air  or  free  ether;  whereas  for 
glass  it  is  only  five  or  six  times  that  of  free  space. 
The  dielectric  constant  of  a  substance  generally  in- 
creases with  the  density  or  massiveness  of  its  mole- 
cule,— indeed,  the  value  of  this  constant  is  one  of 
the  methods  whereby  matter  displays  its  interaction 
with  and  loading  of  the  free  ether  of  space,  — and 
any  such  density  as  the  conventional  nine  times 
that  of  hydrogen  for  the  molecule  of  water  would 
be  wholly  unable  to  explain  its  immense  dielectric 
constant. 

The  influence  of  the  massiveness  of  a  water  mole- 
cule is  also  displayed  in  its  power  of  knocking 

1  See  an  article  on  "  Modern  Views  of  Chemical  Affinity,"  by  the 
present  writer  in  a  magazine  called  Technics,  for  September,  1904. 


160  Life  and  Matter 

asunder  or  dissociating  any  salts  or  other  simple 
chemical  substance  introduced  into  it;  common 
salt,  for  instance,  is  found  always  to  have  a  certain 
percentage  of  its  molecules  knocked  or  torn  asunder 
directly  it  is  dissolved  in  water,  so  that,  in  addition 
to  a  number  of  salt  molecules  in  solution,  there  are 
a  few  positively  charged  sodium  atoms  and  a  few 
negatively  charged  chlorine  atoms,  existing  in  a 
state  of  loose  attraction  to  the  water  aggregate,  and 
amenable  to  the  smallest  electric  force;  which, 
when  applied,  urges  the  chlorine  one  way  and  the 
sodium  the  other  way,  so  that  they  can  be  removed 
at  an  electrode  and  their  place  supplied  by  freshly 
dissociated  molecules  of  salt,  thus  bringing  about 
its  permanent  electro-chemical  decomposition,  and 
enabling  the  water  to  behave  as  an  electrolytic  con- 
ductor directly  a  little  salt  or  acid  is  dissolved  in  it. 
The  power  of  the  water  molecule  to  associate 
itself  with  molecules  of  other  substances  is  illus- 
trated by  the  well-known  fact  that  water  is  an 
almost  universal  solvent.  It  is  its  residual  affinity 
which  enables  it  to  enter  into  weak  chemical  com- 
bination with  a  large  number  of  other  substances, 
and  thus  to  dissolve  those  substances.  The  dis- 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        161 

solving  power  usually  increases  when  the  tempera- 
ture is  raised,  possibly  because  the  self-contained 
or  self-sufficient  groupings  of  the  water  molecules 
are  then  to  some  extent  broken  up  and  the  frag- 
ments enabled  to  cling  to  the  foreign  or  intro- 
duced matter  instead  of  only  to  each  other.  The 
foreign  substance  is  apt  to  be  extruded  again  when 
the  liquid  cools,  and  when  the  affinity  of  the  water- 
aggregates  for  each  other  resumes  its  sway.  Very 
hot  water  can  dissolve  not  only  the  substances 
familiarly  known  to  be  soluble  in  water,  but  it  can 
dissolve  things  like  glass  also,  so  that  glass  vessels 
are  unable  to  retain  water  kept  under  high  pressure 
at  a  very  high  temperature,  approaching  a  red 
heat. 

Another  material  which  also  seems  to  have  the 
power  of  combining  with  a  number  of  other  bodies, 
under  the  influence  of  the  loose  mode  of  chemical 
combination  spoken  of  as  residual  affinity,  is  carbon  ; 
so  that  a  block  of  charcoal  can  absorb  hundreds  of 
times  its  own  bulk  of  certain  gases. 

Indeed,  Sir  James  Dewar  has  recently  employed 
this  absorbing  power  of  very  cold  carbon  to  produce 
a  perfect  kind  of  vacuum,  which  may,  perhaps,  be 


1 62  Life  and  Matter 

the  nearest  approach  to  absolute  vacuum  that  has 
yet  been  attained ;  probably  higher  than  can  be  at- 
tained by  any  kind  of  mechanical  or  mercury  pump. 

Unexpected  Influence  of  Size 

Suppose  now  a  substance  contains  a  great  num- 
ber of  carbon  molecules  and  a  great  number  of 
water  molecules,  each  of  which  has  this  residual 
affinity  or  power  of  clinging  together  well  de- 
veloped, what  may  be  expected  to  be  the  result? 
Surely,  the  formation  of  a  molecule  consisting  of 
thousands  or  hundreds  of  thousands  of  atoms  con- 
stituting substances  more  complex  even  than  those 
already  known  to,  or  analysable  by,  organic  chemis- 
try ;  and  if  these  complex  molecules  likewise  pos- 
sess the  adhesive  faculty,  a  grouping  of  millions  or 
even  billions  of  atoms  may  ultimately  be  formed. 
(A  billion,  that  is,  a  million  millions,  of  atoms  is 
truly  an  immense  number,  but  the  resulting  aggre- 
gate is  still  excessively  minute.  A  portion  of  sub- 
stance consisting  of  a  billion  atoms  is  only  barely 
visible  with  the  highest  power  of  a  microscope;  and 
a  speck  or  granule,  in  order  to  be  visible  to  the 
naked  eye,  like  a  grain  of  lycopodium-dust,  must 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        163 

be  a  million  times  bigger  still.)  Such  a  grouping 
is  likely  to  have  properties  differing  not  only 
in  degree  but  in  kind  from  the  properties  of  simple 
substances. 

For  it  must  not  be  thought  that  aggregation  pro- 
duces only  quantitative  change  and  leaves  quality 
unaltered.  Fresh  qualities  altogether  are  liable  to 
be  introduced  or  to  make  their  appearance  at  cer- 
tain stages — certain  critical  stages — in  the  building 
up  of  a  complex  mass  (cf.  p.  62). 

The  habitability  of  a  house,  for  instance,  de- 
pends on  its  possessing  a  cavity  of  a  certain  size; 
there  is  a  critical  size  of  brick-aggregate  which 
enables  it  to  serve  as  a  dwelling.  Nothing  much 
smaller  than  this  would  do  at  all.  The  aggregate 
retains  this  property,  thus  conferred  upon  it  by 
size,  however  big  it  may  be  made  after  that ;  until 
it  becomes  a  palace  or  a  cathedral,  when  it  may 
perhaps  reach  an  upper  limit  of  size  at  which  it 
would  be  crushed  by  its  own  weight,  or  at  which 
the  span  of  roof  is  too  great  to  be  supported.  But 
the  difference,  as  regards  habitability,  between  a 
palace  and  a  hovel  is  far  less  than  that  between  a 
hovel  and  one  of  the  air-holes  in  a  brick  or  loaf,  or 


1 64  Life  and  Matter 

any  other  cavity  too  small  to  act  as  a  human  habi- 
tation. The  difference  as  regards  habitability  is 
then  an  infinite  difference. 

To  take  a  less  trivial  instance :  a  planet  which  is 
large  enough  to  retain  an  atmosphere  by  its  gravi- 
tative  attraction  differs  utterly,  in  potentiality  and 
importance,  from  the  numerous  lumps  of  matter 
scattered  throughout  space,  which,  though  they 
may  be  as  large  as  a  haystack  or  a  mountain,  or  as 
the  British  Isles,  or  even  Europe,  are  yet  too  small 
to  hold  any  trace  of  air  to  their  surface,  and  there- 
fore cannot  in  any  intelligible  sense  of  the  word  be 
regarded  as  habitable.  One  of  the  lumps  of  matter 
in  space  can  become  a  habitable  planet  only  when 
it  has  attained  a  certain  size,  which  conceivably  it 
might  do  by  falling  together  with  others  into  a 
complex  aggregate  under  the  influence  of  gravita- 
tive  attraction.  The  asteroids  have  not  succeeded 
in  doing  this,  but  the  planets  have;  and,  accord- 
ingly, one  of  them,  at  any  rate,  has  become  a  habit- 
able world. 

But  observe  that  the  great  size  and  the  conse- 
quent retention  of  an  atmosphere  did  not  generate 
the  inhabitants;  it  satisfied  one  of  the  conditions 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        165 

necessary  for  their  existence.  How  they  arose  is 
another  matter.  All  that  we  have  seen  so  far  is 
that  an  aggregate  of  bodies  may  possess  properties 
and  powers  which  the  separate  bodies  themselves 
possess  in  no  kind  or  sort  of  way.  It  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  degree,  but  of  kind. 

So  also,  further,  if  the  aggregate  is  large  enough, 
—very  much  larger  than  any  planet,  as  large  as  a 
million  earths  aggregated  together, — it  acquires  the 
property  of  conspicuous  radio-activity,  it  becomes 
a  self-heating  and  self-luminous  body,  able  to  keep 
the  ether  violently  agitated  in  all  space  round  it, 
and  thus  to  supply  the  radiation  necessary  for  pro- 
tecting the  habitable  worlds  from  the  cold  of  space 
to  which  they  are  exposed,  for  maintaining  them 
at  a  temperature  appropriate  to  organic  existence, 
and  likewise  for  supplying  and  generating  the  en- 
ergy for  their  myriad  activities.  It  has  become,  in 
fact,  a  central  sun  and  source  of  heat,  solely  because 
of  its  enormous  size  combined  with  the  fact  of  the 
mutual  gravitative  attraction  of  its  own  constituent 
particles.  No  body  of  moderate  size  could  perform 
this  function,  nor  act  as  a  perennial  furnace  to  the 
rest. 


1 66  Life  and  Matter 

Application  to  Protoplasm 

Very  well,  then,  return  now  to  our  complex 
molecular  aggregate,  and  ask  what  new  property, 
beyond  the  province  of  ordinary  chemistry  and 
physics,  is  to  be  expected  of  a  compound  which 
contains  millions  or  billions  of  atoms  attached  to 
each  other  in  no  rigid,  stable,  frigid  manner,  but  by 
loose,  unstable  links,  enabling  them  constantly  to 
re-arrange  themselves  and  to  be  the  theatre  of  per- 
petual change,  aggregating  and  re-aggregating  in 
various  ways  and  manifesting  ceaseless  activities. 
Such  unstable  aggregates  of  matter  may,  like  the 
water  of  a  pond  or  a  heap  of  organic  refuse,  serve 
as  the  vehicle  for  influences  wholly  novel  and 
unexpected. 

Too  much  agitation — that  is,  too  high  a  tem- 
perature— will  split  them  up  and  destroy  the  new- 
found potentiality  of  such  aggregates;  too  little 
agitation  —  that  is,  too  low  a  temperature  —  will 
permit  them  to  begin  to  cohere  and  settle  down 
into  frozen,  rigid  masses  insusceptible  of  manifold 
activities.  But  take  them  just  at  the  right  tem- 
perature, when  sufficiently  complex  and  sufficiently 
mobile, — take  care  of  them,  so  to  speak,  for  the 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life         167 

structure  may  easily  be  killed, — and  what  shall  we 
find?  We  could  not  exactly  guess  what  would  be 
the  result,  but  we  can  observe  the  result  as  it  is. 

The  result  is  that  the  complexes  group  them- 
selves into  minute  masses  visible  in  the  microscope, 
each  mass  being  called  by  us  a  "cell";  that  these 
cells  possess  the  power  of  uniting  with  or  assimilat- 
ing other  cells,  or  fragments  of  cells,  as  they  drift 
by  and  come  into  contact  with  them  ;  and  that  they 
absorb  into  their  own  substance  such  portions  as 
may  be  suitable,  while  the  insufficiently  elaborated 
portions — the  grains  of  inorganic  or  over-simple 
material — are  presently  extruded.  They  thus  begin 
the  act  of  "feeding." 

Another  remarkable  property  also  can  be  ob- 
served; for  a  cell  which  thus  grows  by  feeding  need 
not  remain  as  one  individual,  but  may  split  into 
two,  or  into  more  than  two,  which  may  cohere  for 
a  time,  but  will  ultimately  separate  and  continue 
existence  on  their  own  account.  Thus  begins  the 
act  of  "reproduction." 

But  a  still  more  remarkable  property  can  be  ob- 
served in  some  of  the  cell-,  though  not  in  all:  they 
can  not  only  assimilate  a  fragment  of  matter  which 


1 68  Life  and  Matter 

comes  into  contact  with  them,  but  they  can  sense 
it,  apparently,  while  not  yet  in  contact,  and  can 
protrude  portions  of  their  substance  or  move  their 
whole  bodies  towards  the  fragment,  thus  beginning 
the  act  of  "hunting"  ;  and  the  incipient  locomotory 
power  can  be  extended  till  light  and  air  and  moist- 
ure and  many  other  things  can  be  sought  and 
moved  towards,  until  locomotion  becomes  so  free 
that  it  sometimes  seems  apparently  objectless — mere 
restlessness,  change  for  the  sake  of  change,  like  that 
of  human  beings. 

The  power  of  locomotion  is  liable,  however,  to 
introduce  the  cell  to  new  dangers,  and  to  conditions 
hostile  to  its  continued  aggregate  existence.  So, 
in  addition  to  the  sense  of  food  and  other  desirable 
things  ahead,  it  seems  to  acquire,  at  any  rate  when 
still  further  aggregated  and  more  developed,  a  sense 
of  shrinking  from  and  avoidance  of  the  hostile  and 
the  dangerous, — a  sense,  as  it  were,  of  "pain." 

And  so  it  enters  on  its  long  career  of  progress, 
always  liable  to  disintegration  or  "death"  ;  it  begins 
to  differentiate  portions  of  itself  for  the  feeding 
process,  other  portions  for  the  reproductive  process, 
other  portions,  again,  for  sensory  processes,  but 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        169 

retaining  the  protective  sense  of  pain  almost  every- 
where, until  the  spots  sensitive  to  ethereal  and 
aerial  vibrations — which,  arriving  as  they  do  from 
a  distance,  carry  with  them  so  much  valuable  infor- 
mation, and  when  duly  appreciated  render  possible 
perception  and  prediction  as  to  what  is  ahead  — 
until  these  sensitive  spots  have  become  developed 
into  the  special  organs  which  we  now  know  as  the 
"eye"  and  the  "ear."  Then,  presently,  the  povvel 
of  communication  is  slowly  elaborated :  speech  anrf 
education  begin,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  no  longer  limited  to  his  own  experience, 
but  expands  till  it  embraces  the  past  history  and 
the  condensed  acquisition  of  the  race.  And  thus 
gradually  arises  a  developed  self-consciousness,  a 
discrimination  between  the  self  and  the  external 
world,  and  a  realisation  of  the  power  of  choice  and 
freedom, —  a  stage  beyond  which  we  have  not 
travelled  as  yet,  but  a  stage  at  which  almost  all 
things  seem  possible. 

The  first  two  properties,  assimilation  and  repro- 
duction, overshadowed  by  the  possibility  of  dcatJi, 
are  properties  of  life  of  every  kind,  plant  life  as  of 
all  other.  The  power  of  locomotion  and  special 


1 70  Life  and  Matter 

senses,  overshadowed  by  the  sense  of  pain,  are  the 
sign  of  a  still  further  development  into  what  we  call 
"animal  life."  The  further  development  of  mind, 
consciousness,  and  sense  of  freedom,  overshadowed 
by  the  possibility  of  wilful  error  or  sin,  is  the  con- 
spicuous attribute  of  life  which  is  distinctively 
human. 

Thus,  our  complex  molecular  aggregate  has 
shown  itself  capable  of  extraordinary  and  most 
interesting  processes,  has  proved  capable  of  con- 
stituting the  material  vehicle  of  life,  the  natural 
basis  of  living  organisms,  and  even  of  mind ;  very 
much  as  a  planet  of  certain  size  proves  capable  of 
possessing  an  atmosphere. 

But  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  complex  aggre- 
gate generated  the  life  and  mind,  as  the  planet 
generated  its  atmosphere?  That  is  the  so-called 
materialistic  view,  but  to  the  writer  it  seems  an 
erroneous  one,  and  it  is  certainly  one  that  is  not 
proven.  It  is  not  even  certain  that  every  planet 
generated  all  the  gases  of  its  own  atmosphere :  some 
of  them  it  may  have  swept  up  in  its  excursion 
through  space.  What  is  certain  is  that  it  possesses 
the  power  of  retaining  an  atmosphere :  it  is  by  no 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        171 

means  so  certain  how  all  the  constituents  of  that 
atmosphere  arrived. 

Questions  Concerning  the  Origin  and  Nature  of  Life 

All  that  we  have  actually  experienced  and  verified 
is  that  a  complex  molecular  aggregate  is  capable  of 
being  the  vehicle  or  material  basis  of  life;  but  to 
the  question  what  life  is  we  have  as  yet  no  answer. 
Many  have  been  the  attempts  to  generate  life  de 
novo,  by  packing  together  suitable  materials  and 
keeping  them  pleasantly  warm  for  a  long  time;  but, 
where  all  germs  of  pre-existing  life  have  rigorously 
been  excluded,  the  attempt  hitherto  has  been  a  fail- 
ure: so  far,  no  life  has  made  its  appearance  under 
observation,  except  from  antecedent  life. 

But,  to  exclude  all  trace  of  antecedent  life  it  is 
necessary  not  only  to  shut  out  floating  germs,  but 
to  kill  all  germs  previously  existing  in  the  material 
with  which  we  are  dealing.  This  killing  of  previous 
life  is  usually  accomplished  by  heat;  but  it  has  been 
argued  that  strong  heat  will  destroy  not  only  the 
life  but  the  potentiality  for  life;  will  break  up  the 
complex  aggregate  on  which  life  depends  -,  will  de- 
prive the  incubating  solution  not  only  of  life  but  of 


172  Life  and  Matter 

livelihood.  There  is  some  force  in  the  objection, 
and  it  is  an  illustration  of  the  difficulty  surrounding 
the  subject.  But  Tyndall  showed  that  antecedent 
life  could  be  destroyed  without  any  very  high 
temperature, — by  gentle  heat  periodically  applied  ; 
heat  insufficient  to  kill  the  germs,  but  sufficient  to 
kill  the  hatched  or  developed  organisms.  Periodic 
heating  enables  the  germs  of  successive  ages  to 
hatch,  so  to  speak,  and  the  product  to  be  slain ; 
and,  although  some  each  time  may  have  reproduced 
germs  before  slaughter — eggs  capable  of  standing 
the  warmth — yet  a  succession  of  such  warmings 
would  ultimately  be  fatal  to  all,  and  that  without 
necessarily  breaking  up  the  protoplasmic  complex 
aggregates  on  the  existence  of  which  the  whole 
vital  potentiality  depends. 

So  far,  however,  all  effort  at  spontaneous  genera- 
tion has  been  a  failure;  possibly  because  some 
essential  ingredient  or  condition  was  omitted,  pos- 
sibly because  great  lapse  of  time  was  necessary. 
But  suppose  it  was  successful;  what  then?  We 
should  then  be  reproducing  in  the  laboratory  a  pro- 
cess that  must  at  some  past  age  have  occurred  on 
the  earth;  for  at  one  time  the  earth  was  certainly 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        1 73 

hot  and  molten  and  inorganic,  whereas  now  it 
swarms  with  life. 

Does  that  show  that  the  earth  generated  the  life? 
By  no  means ;  no  more  than  it  does  that  the  earth 
necessarily  has  generated  all  the  gases  of  its  atmos- 
phere, or  the  meteoric  dust  which  lies  upon  its  snows. 

Life  may  be  something  not  only  ultra-terrestrial, 
but  even  immaterial,  something  outside  our  present 
categories  of  matter  and  energy;  as  real  as  they 
are,  but  different,  and  utilising  them  for  its  own 
purpose.  What  is  certain  is  that  life  possesses  the 
power  of  vitalising  the  complex  material  aggregates 
which  exist  on  this  planet,  and  of  utilising  their 
energies  for  a  time  to  display  itself  amid  terrestrial 
surroundings;  and  then  it  seems  to  disappear  or 
evaporate  whence  it  came.  It  is  perpetually  arriv- 
ing and  perpetually  disappearing.  While  it  is  here, 
if  it  is  at  a  sufficiently  high  level,  the  animated 
material  body  moves  about  and  strives  after  many 
objects,  some  worthy,  some  unworthy ;  it  acquires 
thereby  a  certain  individuality,  a  certain  character. 
It  may  realise  itself,  moreover,  becoming  conscious 
of  its  own  mental  and  spiritual  existence;  and  it 
then  begins  to  explore  the  Mind  which,  like  its 


174  Life  and  Matter 

own,  it  conceives  must  underlie  the  material  fabric 
— half  displayed,  half  concealed,  by  the  environ- 
ment, and  intelligible  only  to  a  kindred  spirit. 
Thus  the  scheme  of  law  and  order  dimly  dawns  on 
the  nascent  soul,  and  it  begins  to  form  clear  con- 
ceptions of  truth,  goodness,  and  beauty;  it  may 
achieve  something  of  permanent  value,  as  a  work  of 
art  or  of  literature;  it  may  enter  regions  of  emotion 
and  may  evolve  ideas  of  the  loftiest  kind ;  it  may 
degrade  itself  below  the  beasts,  or  it  may  soar  till 
it  is  almost  divine. 

Is  it  the  material  molecular  aggregate  that  has  of 
its  own  unaided  latent  power  generated  this  indi- 
viduality, acquired  this  character,  felt  these  emo- 
tions, evolved  these  ideas?  There  are  some  who  try 
to  think  that  it  is.  There  are  others  who  recognise 
in  this  extraordinary  development  a  contact  between 
this  material  frame  of  things  and  a  universe  higher 
and  other  than  anything  known  to  our  senses;  a 
universe  not  dominated  by  physics  and  chemistry, 
but  utilising  the  interactions  of  matter  for  its  own 
purposes;  a  universe  where  the  human  spirit  is 
more  at  home  than  it  is  among  these  temporary  col- 
locations of  atoms;  a  universe  capable  of  infinite 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Life        1 75 

development,  of  noble  contemplation,  and  of  lofty 
joy,  long  after  this  planet — nay,  the  whole  solar 
system  —  shall  have  fulfilled  its  present  sphere  of 
destiny,  and  retired  cold  and  lifeless  upon  its 
endless  way. 


"  Remarkable  for  its  simple  language  and  clear 
style,  ,  .  ,  Bears  the  stamp  of  a  production  of 
an  erudite  scientist  and  a  deep  thinker," — Science. 


The   Prolongation  of 
Life 

Optimistic     Essays 

By  Elie  MetcHniKoff 
Author  of  "The  Mature  of  Man,"  etc. 

Svo.    Price,  $2.50  net 

M.  Elie  Metchnikoff  is  one  of  those  rare  scientists  who 
have  found  a  way  to  lay  hold  of  and  present  to  the  world  in 
untechnical  phraseology,  intelligible  to  the  lay  mind,  such 
results  of  his  researches  as  are  of  universal  interest  and  go 
straight  home  to  the  bosoms  and  business  of  intelligent  men. 
The  Nature  of  Man,  by  the  same  author,  was  one  of  the  most 
fascinating  books,  at  once  popular,  and  scientific,  which  have 
appeared  for  decades.  The  book  here  in  question  will  stand 
beside  it  as  a  worthy  companion  volume.  It  is  satisfactory 
to  report  that,  absorbed  as  Metchnikoff  is  in  "  material  " 
problems,  and  deep  as  he  is  in  the  mysteries  of  the  physical 
universe,  these  essays  show  him  to  be  an  optimist  who  speaks 
with  no  uncertain  voice. 

A  great  deal  of  attention  is  given  in  The  Prolongation  of 
Human  Life  to  the  subject  of  old  age  and  its  causes,  with 
scientific  observations  of  special  cases  among  human  beings 
and  the  lower  animals.  The  author  suggests  means  of  pro- 
longing life  and  health,  while  contemplating  natural  death 
with  serenity,  and  finding  that  agreeable  sensations  accompany 
its  approach.  Beyond  a  certain  point  it  seems  to  him  a  dis- 
advantage to  prolong  life.  Passing  on  from  these  mortuary 
lucubrations,  the  essays  concern  themselves  with  psychological 
matters,  with  optimism  and  pessimism  and  in  general  with 
questions  of  science  and  morals.  The  temperaments  of  certain 
great  men  are  analyzed  in  studies  that  have  for  their  subjects 
respectively  Byron,  Leopardi,  Schopenhauer,  and  Goethe.  In 
the  preface  the  author  says  that  he  has  avoided,  as  far  as 
possible,  repeating  points  which  have  been  sufficiently  treated 
in  7"he  Nature  of  Man. 


G.    P.     PUTNAM'S    SONS 

iNEW  YORK  LONDON 


The  most  valuable  production  since  Darwin's  "  Origin 
of  Species." 

The  Nature  of  Man 

Studies  in  Optimistic  Philosophy 
By  Elie  Metchnikoff 

Professor  at  the  Pasteur  Institute 
Translated  with  an  Introduction  by 

P.  Chambers  Mitchell 

Secretary  of  the  Zoological  Society 


Octavo.    Illustrated       ...       Net,  $3.00 


It  is  not  often  that  a  scientific  book  may  be  read  with 
ease,  profit,  and  pleasure  by  the  general  reader,  so  that 
M.  Metchnikofi's  book  comes  in  the  nature  of  an  agreeable 
surprise.  It  is  marked  by  a  refreshing  naivete  and  a  large 
simplicity  which  are  characteristically  Russian.  The  scien- 
tific importance  of  this  work  is  so  great  that  it  is  spoken  of 
in  England  as  the  most  valuable  production  since  Darwin's 
Origin  of  Species. 

Opinions  of  tKe  Press 

"An  extremely  interesting  and  typical  book.  .  .  .  Wich  a  distin- 
guished frankness,  M.  Metchnikoff  defines  his  attitude  to  our  universal 
prepossessions.  It  is  his  theory  that  the  infirmities  of  age  are  to  be 
overcome.  If  there  be  ground  for  this  conception,  humanity  is  to  be 
profoundly  changed  and  what  we  call  life  now,  will  be  the  childhood 
and  youth  of  that  longer  and  larger  life."— H.  G.  WELLS,  in  London 

Speaker. 

<. 

"  Undoubtedly  a  great  book  (in  some  quarters  it  has  been  hailed  as 
the  greatest  since  Darwin's  famous  message  to  the  world)  and  should 
be  read  by  all  intelligent  men  and  women."— The  Nation. 

"  A  book  to  be  set  side  by  side  with  Huxley's  Essays,  whose  spirit  It 
carries  a  step  further  on  the  long  road  towards  its  goal."— Mail  and 
Express. 

New  York— Q.  P.  Putnam's  Sons— London 


DATE  DUE 


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Ww'D  JUN 

i  i  : 

RECTO  APR   3 

1974 

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